Indigo Autumn: A Novella
by JayRain
Summary: Hermione has never talked about her life before Hogwarts, or why she was so quick to turn her back on the Muggle world. But one night after 6th year she decides to tell Harry and Ron everything. Now AU, given book 7 info
1. Prologue: Revelations and Confessions

_Indigo Autumn: A Novella_

_by J. Rolande_

_Prologue: Revelations and Confessions_

"I can't believe you agreed not to go back to Hogwarts," Ron said once again, flopping down on the orange Chudley Cannons bedspread, his equally orange hair seeming to blend in and make him look bald.

"You said that seven times now," Hermione pointed out primly, reaching over and smoothing a crease out of the fabric. "Once on the train back to London..." she began ticking things off on her fingers. "Again at your parents', then on the way to the Dursleys, and then with Harry—but that time Harry said it with you—then at Godric's Hollow, and on the way back from Godric's Hollow, then over tea, and now. Seven," she finished.

"You counted?" Ron asked, propping himself up on his elbows. "You counted. I can't believe you sometimes. Why would a person, well, a sane person, count something like that?"

Hermione smiled a bit. "It's just something I've always done. I don't mean to."

"Don't mean to what?" Harry asked, poking his bespectacled face around the corner, then altogether entering Ron's room. He looked like he'd grown even more over the summer, or maybe it was the slight, prematurely haggard expression he'd developed only since the visit to his parents' graves.

Whatever it was that had caused it, Hermione had noticed it almost immediately, much like she immediately noticed just about everything around her. She pasted on a grin she did not feel; that seemed to be the way of things these days, between the three of them. They'd been inseparable friends for almost seven years, and only now they were pretending, play-acting, for one another. "Ron was just commenting on the fact I've counted how many times he said he can't believe I'm not going back to Hogwarts."

Harry grinned a bit himself, which helped make him look a bit more like the seventeen-year-old he actually was. "Well, I can't say I blame him," he added, shooting his grin over at Ron. "I honestly thought you'd change your mind at the last moment."

Hermione feigned shock. "Haven't I proven myself loyal to you and your causes right along?" she asked. "Just because I like school and find it important doesn't mean I can't tell when something's more important, you know."

Normally Harry and Ron would have found themselves enjoying gales of laughter at such a statement. "You, find something more important than school?" Harry would say. "What'll you do without school?" Ron would say. "Shrivel up and die, perhaps," Hermione would say. But now the predictable gibes and lighthearted taunts had no place in their conversations. Ever since that night at the end of the past school year they'd somehow felt a sense of necessity when it came to their friendship, a sense that they couldn't waste time teasing anymore. There was a feeling of urgency about everything they did together, because no one, themselves included, knew which journey, which comment, which remark, would be their last.

There was now the tense silence they'd become accustomed to of late. Most of their time together was like this: tense, silent, uncertain. Rarely did they speak except out of necessity, and usually it was Harry who broke the silences. Harry, the Boy Who Lived. Harry, the avatar of Voldemort. Harry, their best friend who was destined to save their world from Voldemort's reign of terror. They looked to him for his leadership and guidance and did as their loyalty to him demanded. They stuck by him through thick and thin, no matter how cliche the term was.

Once again Harry did not disappoint. He broke the silence, his speech the knife that cut through it. "So, Hermione..." he began.

She looked up from the slightly warped wooden floor of the Burrow's top floor. "Yes?"

"Well... I was wondering. What _were_ you doing before Hogwarts?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, slightly perplexed.

"Ron was raised here, in a wizard family," Harry explained, gesticulating around the room. "His whole family went to Hogwarts, so it was natural that's where he'd wind up. You know I was with the Dursleys," he said, wrinkling up his nose a bit; Ron followed suit, and Hermione smiled in spite of herself. Harry smiled a bit too. "But you... all we know is your parents are Muggles and dentists. That's all. You never talk about them, or what you were doing before Hogwarts."

Ron straightened up, nearly bumping his carrot-topped head on a low rafter. "Bloody hell, Hermione, Harry's right!" he exclaimed. "So tell us all the details. Were you always as bossy as this?" he asked with a grin.

Hermione couldn't resist and threw a lopsided pillow at him, hitting him squarely in the face. "Not fair! I wasn't ready!" he complained.

"That's the point," she shot back, smiling.

"What were you like?" Harry asked. "Did you always like school?"

"Yeah, what was Muggle school like?" Ron asked, intrigued. "I know Harry's told me, but I want to know from someone smart," he added, dodging another pillow.

Hermione became thoughtful. "What school was like..." she said, slightly dreamily. "I suppose... I suppose it was fine," she said lamely. "I don't think it was that different from Harry's experiences."

"You didn't have a cousin and his mates bullying you," Harry pointed out sagely. "You had a family who cared how you did, you know, how your marks were."

Hermione actually felt herself start to squirm a bit, and felt a flush creep into her cheeks. "Oh, well..." And then she realized that she might never have the chance to say this again, that even as soon as this night, or tomorrow, or the day after she could be dead, or they could be, and these things could go unsaid. Why was she embarrassed, anyway? Why would she want to keep these secrets from her two best friends? And now that she was of age in their world, and had truly found a place where she belonged, what did her past life in the Muggle world really matter?

"My parents were chuffed when I got my letter," she finally said, something about the tone of her voice drawing Harry and Ron's rapt gazes. She turned over on her stomach and rested her chin on her arms. "They finally had an answer."

"The Dursleys were afraid of my letter," Harry said. "And Aunt Petunia knew about Hogwarts. Your parents didn't know anything, and they were actually _glad_ about your letter?" he asked incredulously.

Hermione flashed a wry grin. "You wanted to know what my life was like before Hogwarts?" She asked, almost challenging. "You want to know why I enjoy school, and learning, and overachieving?"

"Well, yes," Ron said in a sarcastic manner, rolling his eyes. "There's got to be some reason."

"There is. It's nothing I worked for, or tried to become. It's something I am. I've always been this way; all Hogwarts did was give me an outlet for it. A real outlet."

"Hermione, I don't understand," Harry said.

"Very few people ever did," she told him. "My parents included. Let's just say Hogwarts answered their one burning question in life: what to do with me."

Ron nearly spit out the water he was quaffing. It was already September, but it was still warm out, and even warmer in the attic of the Burrow. "What to do with you?" he nearly shrieked. "Hermione, you're not serious, are you? You're obsessed with the rules! You're the smartest person I've ever met! Your parents needed to _do something_ with you?"

"Yes," she said simply, everything, all the thoughts, memories, and feelings coming back to her, slowly at first, then quicker and quicker. She thought she'd buried them and they were long gone; Hogwarts had given her exactly what she'd needed. She'd found herself there. She'd put her old life behind her. And now she had to remember it. "I've always been... _like this_, as you put it. I never fit in, anywhere and was afraid that even at Hogwarts I wouldn't. Finally, that Halloween, first year, I thought it was over, because I still wasn't understood. And then the thing with the troll and all... then we became friends and things worked out for the best." She smiled fondly at her two friends.

"What a stroll down Memory Lane," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "Tell us something we don't already know, will you? That's what we're interested in." Harry nodded in agreement. Both boys had fixed rapt gazes on Hermione.

"I suppose I've beaten around the bush long enough," she acquiesced. "Yes. So even though I was smart and such, I wasn't easy for my parents to deal with. But there was a reason." She took a deep breath. She'd never admitted this to anyone before, and even now, in the presence of her best friends she found it hard to wrap her mind and mouth around the words. "I... I'm a prodigy," she finally said. Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment, and she quickly averted her eyes from the boys.

"We knew that," Ron snapped, again rolling his eyes. "McGonagall gave you the Time Turner so you could take extra classes in our _third year_. Third year! You're always in the library. You get all the spells right away."

"See, that's the thing though, Ron, I'm always in the library," she said. "I had to work for it. Some of it was talent. Okay, the practical parts were talent, and easy," she admitted. "But the rest of it... the history, the theory, all the background stuff, that I had to work at, and it felt good to work at it, because I'd never had to work at anything before. And that's what frustrated me and my parents. And my school teachers. And my peers. Not my friends. I never had friends. Until first year."

"But Hermione!" Harry exclaimed, sitting up straighter. "Being a prodigy's a grand thing, isn't it? I mean, everything's easy for you."

"Not when you're in Year Eleven before you're even eleven years old," she confessed quietly. "When everyone else your age is in Year Seven? When everyone else in your classes is about five or six years older than you? Try being in Sixth Form before those classmates because you've surpassed them in the curriculum. Imagine the odd looks you get. Imagine having to consider University when most people your age, their grandest concern is what they're going to do on summer holiday."

"Calm down, Hermione!" Harry said quickly, catching Ron's eye. "It's okay, I didn't mean to upset you, we can talk about something else—"

"No, no, it's okay. I think I should talk about this," she said, sniffling and wiping her eyes. "Just try to imagine what you were like back then, Harry, Ron," she told them. "Try to remember that, then try to imagine the eleven-year-old you trying to think about anything other than pranks, sweets, and sticking your noses where they didn't belong," she finished, flashing a knowing grin through her tears.

"I can't," the boys said in unintended unison.

"But it was more than that," she continued after taking in a deep breath. "Try being eleven with the mentality of someone much older, and trying to interact with adults who don't understand that. Adults including your parents."

"I never much liked adults anyway," Ron offered, trying to be sympathetic. It elicited a grin from Hermione. "It's hard enough interacting with them at eleven. Bloody hell, I hated interacting with Percy when I was eleven. I hate interacting with him now, actually," he added thoughtfully. "Don't you dare tell me you understand Percy again," he warned.

Hermione actually laughed at that, a sound that was alien to all of them. Laughter was a precious commodity these days, and she'd never been well known for her laughter. It was a welcome change of things. "Well, to a degree I do. There are people who like the rules. Love them, really. Need them. And then there are Indigos."

"Indigos?" Harry asked blankly.

"Blue people?" Ron asked. "Or purple? Or something in the middle?" He chuckled at his own bad joke.

"No, Indigo Children," Hermione explained, trying not to be cross with them for not understanding. "It's the only explanation for me." She looked meaningfully at each of them, leveling them with her shrewd, clear gaze. "I've never told anyone about this before–"

"Sounds like you never had anyone to tell before," Ron interrupted.

"Touché," she retorted with a half-grin. "But really, if you want to know about it you'll have to listen to me. Because it's not easy to talk about."

"We're listening," Harry said, sitting up even straighter and peering at Hermione, his green eyes magnified by his glasses. "Please tell us?"

His voice was gentle, sincere. Hermione couldn't help but feel a sense of warming in her, a feeling of contentment and belonging. They accepted her, even with her no less than odd background. And they always would. She took a deep breath, slightly shaky, then began.

"There are geniuses. There are prodigies. Then... then there are people like me. Indigo Child Prodigies. We're not easy people to be around... and we're not easy people to be," she finished, even as images, voices, memories, and emotions flooded back into her heart, mind, and spirt.


	2. Chapter 1: Reverse Desperation

_Chapter 1: Reverse Desperation_

"You understand that most people who come to see me about problem children have children who are indeed problematic," Dr. Briar said, peering over the gold rims of his spectacles. "They have a history of violent behaviour, harming themselves or others. They're disrespectful toward adults and can't seem to get on with their peers. They usually do poorly in school. I just don't really understand why you've come to see me about your daughter."

Adeline Granger, DDS, cast a sidelong glance over at her husband, Archibald Granger, also DDS, and sighed. Their daughter, eleven-year-old Hermione Jane, sat primly on the edge of her chair, looking around the room. She wasn't merely spacing out, as most children her age would do. She wasn't bored by her surroundings. If anything, she was more fascinated by them than was considered healthy.

"Child psychology isn't an exact science yet, you know," she piped up, averting her gaze from Dr. Briar's ballpoint pen, and drawing the mortified gasps of her parents.

"Hermione, please," Adeline said nervously.

"No, it's alright, this _is_ my field after all," Dr. Briar said with a stony smile. "And why would you say that?"

"Well, for starters, psychology in and of itself is concerned with the human brain; we only utilize ten percent of it, so how can we, utilizing ten percent, presume to try to understand how that ten percent functions?"

"I see your point."

"You're patronizing me," Hermione said, but it wasn't a cross accusation, merely an observation. "You're listening to me and thinking I can't possibly know what I'm talking about. That according to Piaget, I should only be in the concrete operational stage of my development, when I am, in fact, in the formal operational stage, and have been for some time now."

"You've read Piaget. Interesting."

"Not so much interesting as it was necessary," she said with the wisdom of someone at least thrice her age. "When my parents started discussing a psychologist, I thought it would be necessary to know about the frameworks you'd be using to analyze me."

"This isn't really an analysis, Hermione," the doctor said pleasantly. "I just want to talk to you and your parents, and find out what the problem seems to be."

"Oh, there's no problem," she told him firmly. "May I see your pen, please?"

"My–my pen?" he asked, startled, yet handing it over to her.

"Thank you." She took the pen, her brow creasing, and narrowed her gaze at it.

With that pause, Dr. Briar turned his attentions back to the Doctors Granger. "She's intelligent," he stated, his voice a tad cooler than it previously had been. "I don't think you need me; I think you need an IQ test."

"We've had those," Archibald said. "She's taken the WISC-IV several times. She's scored in the 99.9th percentile every time. The numbers always hover around 189 or so."

"And what does she seem to think about this?"

"She accepts it, and the... consequences? No, that's not the right word, and it makes it sound like she's done something wrong," Adeline said, closing her eyes and covering them with her hand. "She doesn't think it's a bad thing, I don't think. But... we're at the end of our rope."

"Why? You have a genius child," Dr. Briar said.

"No, a prodigy," Archibald interjected. "She started forming words at 13 months. She started reading at 15 months. At two she had an immense vocabulary... now at eleven she's taken top marks in her A-levels in Sixth Form. She'll probably be an Upper Sixth in a few months at the rate we're going... We'll have a twelve-year-old applying to University!" he finished. "Addie and I aren't sure it's the best thing, or if it's healthy for her socially."

"Well, certainly the academic acceleration would have some social impact," Dr. Briar said, casting a furtive glance over at Hermione, who seemed deep in though contemplating the simple device that was his pen. "Are you finding that fascinating?" he asked, both perplexed and irritated by the little adult sitting in his chair.

"Well, yes, actually," she said, looking up and hitting him with the full force of her wise, deep brown gaze. "It's amazing to see how simple a design this is, how easy to make, and yet it took hundreds of years to get to this point. Years of sticks and woodcuts and runes and quills, and finally we get to the fountain pen, and eventually the ballpoint pen. I think it's revolutionized things a bit."

"Hermione," he began slowly.

"Yes?"

"How do you feel, being this way?" he asked.

"I've never been any other way, so I've never felt any other way," she said sagely. "I really have no basis for comparison, you see."

"Yes, I see. I suppose I should ask you how you feel being eleven, and already looking toward Upper Sixth Form. I'm probably not mistaken to say you're the youngest in your courses?"

"That'd be right," she said, setting his pen on the edge of the desk and flicking her eyes around the office again. "I've always been the youngest in any year, and I've never completed a full year." She demurely crossed her ankles and folded her hands in her lap. "Most kids my age are concerned with games and play, I know. I also know I should attempt to find an interest in those things as well, and maybe I can reduce my feelings of isolation."

"Isolation. So you feel isolated because of your... talents and abilities?"

She smiled, revealing slightly large and slightly crooked front teeth. "Talents and abilities. Now there's a euphemism I haven't heard before. And I've heard them all. Genius, prodigy, gifted child, et cetera."

Dr. Briar nodded once, slowly, and equally slowly took his pen back. Something inside of him made him look at it, focus in on it, wondering what Hermione Granger saw in it that he could not see. What was so fascinating about something as simple as a ballpoint pen? And what about her interest in it was so perplexing?

"She's well aware of her... condition," Adeline piped up.

"That's another euphemism I forgot to mention," Hermione interjected.

"We know she has intelligence of genius proportions," Archibald said firmly. "It's the other pieces that have us concerned, the social and emotional aspects. Addie and I just want her to adjust and be normal."

"As normal as she'll be able to be," Adeline added, grasping her husband's hand.

Dr. Briar looked at the couple in surprise, and then at Hermione. "What do you feel when they speak about you that way?"

"Oh, that," she said lightly. "Not many people talk _to_ me. Mostly _about_ me. I'm rather used to it, actually. It doesn't bother me. Especially from Mum and Da. I know they only mean well. I'm an only child, and they just want the best for me."

"That's a very... mature way of looking at things."

"I'm wise beyond my years," Hermione replied. Coming from just about any other child it would have sounded petulant or bratty, or downright arrogant. Somehow, coming from this bushy-haired child with the deep, old, dark brown eyes, it sounded oddly like truth. This was a child who was more than a child, but an adult mind trapped in a child's body. The mind had accelerated and grown far more quickly than the body, and now the intellect of a University professor was trapped in the body of an eleven-year-old girl!

"Yes, yes you are, Hermione," he conceded with a slight smile, turning his attention to the blank file in front of him, and wondering how he could even begin to fill it when Archibald interrupted him.

"See, you're a specialist in these areas," he said. "You know how to deal with it when she talks to you like that. But other adult figures aren't so, well, understanding or sensitive about it. She's been known to correct her teachers. Last year in Year 11 she corrected her chemistry teacher. Rather than being impressed, or accepting the critique he had her sent to the headmistress's office for discipline. Three years ago she got into a bit of a row over an interpretation of a Tennyson poem. When the teacher didn't quite understand Hermione's Lacanian interpretation, Hermione left the classroom."

"She's smarter than any teacher or professor she's ever had," Adeline added, leaning forward in her chair. "We're sure she means well when she shows that, but they see her as a show-off. It undermines their professionalism, especially in front of other, more age-appropriate students."

"Understandable."

"And it's not just her teachers," Archibald jumped in. "We can hardly watch the news anymore, because of how she goes on about it, you see. And we cut short our visit to the Houses of Parliament just a fortnight ago because she started questioning foreign policy and got quite vocal with a guard who asked her to turn away from an off-limits hallway. Not to mention how brutal it was waiting with her in the queue to get in to begin with." Adeline nodded emphatically, looking between her husband, the doctor, and her daughter.

"The concept of a queue for an attraction like that is asinine," Hermione spoke up. "Not to mention the attitudes the Prime Minister is taking toward exporting—"

"—And this is what we're dealing with," Adeline finished with a bright, yet false smile plastered on her face. "Public schooling is only doing so much for her. She's clearly not quite ready for University—"

"Or University isn't ready for her," Archibald pointed out. "On a couple of levels."

"Either way, we need to do something, and we're just not sure what. We've looked for gifted children's groups and they've helped, but only for so long," Adeline said. "As much as she questions things and authority and such, she's got this thing about the rules, and tends to be rather bossy around the other children. She's too much even for children like her, because, I think, they're not as much like her as any of us think." This time it was Archibald's turn to nod.

"Have you considered private schooling?" Dr. Briar asked, flicking his gaze at Hermione, who was skimming book titles on his shelves, and nodding to herself occasionally. What she was doing he could only guess, and unfortunately, any guess he could make was based on his experiences with case-study "normal" pre-teens, and thus frustratingly unsuited for making conjectures about Hermione Granger.

"We have, but none of them can provide the sort of environment she needs. They're all also highly structured."

"Structure can be good for the highly intelligent child. It gives her expectations. Some studies are showing that high intelligence doesn't equate high degrees of common sense."

"Pardon," Hermione said suddenly. "I have plenty of common sense, thank you." She turned her attentions from the books and back to her parents and the doctor. "I'm a prodigy, not a savant. There's absolutely nothing wrong with savants, of course," she added sensibly. "However, there are many factors differentiating an autistic savant from a child prodigy, and none of what I've read gives me any reason to believe I would be a savant. I'm asymptomatic."

"And you can see we absolutely cannot keep her at home," Adeline said, sounding weary for the first time that afternoon. "She's our only child, and we love her dearly and all, but it'd be a disservice to her. Yet anything else..."

Archibald patted his wife's knee and looked imploringly at the psychologist. "So you see we are in fact quite desperate at this point."

"Yes, yes, I see that," Dr. Briar said, fixing his gaze on Hermione, who stared back calmly. "It's odd, but it's a reverse desperation in a way. Most of my clients come to me out of desperation, in the sense that their child is engaged, or engaging in, deviant behaviours. They have the potential to take away from society if there is no intervention of any sort. On the other hand..." He took a deep breath. "Your daughter is unlike anything I've seen before. Her behaviours have the potential only to contribute to society, and to do it in great ways. Yet at the same time they're deviant."

"Yes, it's fascinating, we know," Archibald said, finally slouching in his chair. "But we need advice. We need someone to tell us where to go or what to do with Hermione."

"You make me sound like some horrible problem," Hermione said sensibly. "I can understand your frustrations, I'm sure I'm not the easiest person to have around. At least, that's what teachers tell me. I'd love to explain to them how I feel, but I know it'd make no sense to do so. They wouldn't listen."

"Why do you think that?"

"I don't think that, I know that. They won't listen because they know I have a gift. I've been blessed. If I were to tell them how I feel about it sometimes, and that those feelings are less than grateful or thankful to be blessed in this way, they'd be angry because they wish they could have this. They don't understand what it is to have it and always be five steps ahead of some people. Seven steps ahead of most. And meters and meters ahead of the others my age. I'm quite isolated, but that doesn't seem to be a concern. How I use, or abuse, as some believe I've done, my intelligence is more of a concern."

"...I see."

Dr. Briar was quiet for a moment, tapping his pen on the file. "Quite honestly..." he began. "To be honest, I don't know that there's much I can do to help you all. I usually deal with children who don't understand themselves or their feelings, and unfortunately, Hermione is very well adjusted, as well as in touch with her feelings and the blessings and curses of being such a prodigy."

"You can't do anything?" Adeline exclaimed, sitting up straight in her chair, face paling.

"Unfortunately, I'm not really certain; traditional child psychology hasn't prepared us for working with the sort of child your Hermione appears to be. Medication is completely unnecessary, even if I could prescribe it. It would only harm her gifts more than it could help them anyway."

"There's got to be something. Anything."

"Do you have anyone you can refer us to?" Archibald asked, his desperation evident in his voice. "Like, a different angle of looking at this. We've been doing testing and statistics and bell curves and percentiles, maybe we need something a little bit on the different side. Spiritual or emotional or something."

"Even more imprecise than psychology, you realize," Hermione put in with a nod.

Dr. Briar looked between the haggard dentist couple and their precocious and alert genius child. He thought about other children he'd had placed in alternative programs or diagnosed with newly named disorders. And the he thought of Violet, Violet Peekins, a friend of his wife's. It was clear Hermione Granger wasn't a fan of alternative treatments or anything of this sort, but perhaps Violet could at least give the Grangers the help he could not give them. And even as he thought it, he realized that he was trying to do to the Grangers what they were trying to do with their daughter: pawn off this most unusual problem to the first person willing to handle their extremely unusual case.

He smiled politely and flipped through his Rolodex. "I have a family friend who just might be able to help you out a bit," he said with a smile, but even as he said it he caught Hermione's eye, and that wise, knowing gaze seemed to see right through him, piercing through his insecurities and lies, and quickly piecing together the situation ahead of both her and her family.


	3. Chapter 2: Realization

_Chapter 2: Realization_

"I've found very little information on this Violet Peekins," Hermione announced as she cut her chicken into cubes and pushed her chips into a neat pile on the rim of her plate. "I was excused from my literature class today so I used the time usefully."

Rather than focus on this revelation of information, Archibald and Adeline sighed and set down their utensils. "Archie, will you...?"

"Yes, Addie, no problem." He looked at his daughter sternly. "Hermione, why were you excused from literature class?"

"I finished my homework early."

"For the day?"

"For the week. I could have kept on and finished the semester, her approach is predictable enough, but I didn't want to show her up too badly. It's a habit I'm trying to rectify in an attempt to be 'normal'." She delicately popped a piece of chicken into her mouth and followed with a swig of water.

"That's all?"

"Well, yes; when I finished she asked me why I wasn't working on anything and I explained I'd finished everything for the week and asked if it would be alright if I discreetly worked on my maths homework. I have a calculus test in two weeks, you see, and I covered the material on my own a month ago and wanted to brush up."

"Hermione, just... at what point did she ask you to leave class."

"Oh, right then. She said something about 'if you're too good for this class why don't you just leave, already?' so I did. No sense remaining there if all she's going to do is berate me. However, by leaving I am afraid I affirmed her notion that I think I'm too good for her class." A shadow of regret passed over Hermione's face. "So I went to the library."

Archibald and Adeline, or, Archie and Addie, as they called one another out of the office, weren't surprised at this occurrence in the least; it was a common one, and the more accelerated Hermione became, the more it seemed to happen. She was ahead of everything in the school system. Soon there would be nothing left for her. She'd earn a reputation as a know-it-all, as an arrogant wunderkind who couldn't respect her elders, and her gift would work against her rather than for her. It was a vicious downward spiral they didn't know how to stop.

"What did you discover on Violent Peekins, dear?" Addie stepped in, knowing full well a lecture on her behaviour wouldn't help the situation. Hermione simply couldn't understand the concepts of keeping quiet, or keeping a low profile.

"Like I said a moment ago there wasn't much. Offbeat news articles. She was also featured in a local, low-budget occultist magazine."

Addie paled and looked at her husband. "Occultist?"

"Yes, but not the sacrificing cats, stick pins in an effigy sort of occult, from what I gathered. More of the seeing the future. Crystals and such. New Age," she finished, cutting a chip in half and sticking it in her mouth. "Can you pass the salt, please?"

Archie complied while Addie pushed her barely touched plate away. "Is this what we're reduced to? New Age? Untested and uncharted, and unapproved, treatments? Dr. Briar just wanted to get rid of us. That's all. He doesn't care. He can't do anything so he sends us to a... to a... a witch!" she exclaimed furiously.

"Spiritualist," Hermione corrected after hastily swallowing her mouthful of chips. "And if you were willing to go to a psychologist, which is practically the same thing, I don't see what the problem is with this."

"Psychology is an accepted science. Like medicine. Or dentistry," Archie pointed out. "We know the brain functions certain ways. But the spirit or soul..."

"I know. According to many organized religions the human spirit and or soul is what separates us from animals. Though I've not found much use for religion, outside of the interesting sociological implications."

"Hermione... are you arguing for or against going to see this Peekins woman?" her mother asked wearily. "I just can't tell anymore."

"I'm indifferent, really," Hermione answered with a shrug, tucking a wayward lock of her bushy brown hair behind her ears. "I was just enjoying debating psychology and spiritualism and the occult, albeit briefly." She turned her attentions to her green beans. "You added mushrooms. Nice touch." She smiled.

"Thank you, it was your father's idea." Addie shook her head. "What am I doing? Don't change the subject like that, Hermione Jane! Look, maybe your father and I should talk, alone, for a moment. Please excuse yourself."

Hermione smiled as she hopped out of her chair and grabbed her dinner plate. "Done. But... maybe sometime you can talk to me?"

"That's the thing, darling," Archie said gently. "We love you, we do. You're our only daughter. Of course we love you. But sometimes... you're hard to talk to," he finished. He averted his gaze from his daughter. "Please, just... go to your room, or the sitting room... your mother and I need to discuss this."

Hermione gave a nod and turned, headed for the kitchen. She scraped her plate into the trash then rinsed it in the sink and left it there. Normally she had no problem just washing it, drying it, and then putting it away, but if her parents wanted a normal child, she'd be one. Starting with the dirty dishes.

She then headed up to her bedroom, but halfway up the stairs changed her mind and bounded back down and into the sitting room. The upright piano stood against the wall that backed up to the dining room. They could excuse her from the dinner table, but they couldn't ignore her entirely! With a sardonic grin she perched on the piano bench and struck a quiet C# minor chord. The notes reverberated menacingly through the piano strings and out into her hands and arms and very core. She smiled and struck a C minor this time, reveling in the way the notes seemed to jolt her very body. She closed her eyes and launched into Chopin. She was immediately transported back to being five years old.

_Music. Music on the radio. Classical. She listened to the repetition of patterns, the variations on chords and scales and modes. She heard motifs and themes. She felt the music. She saw the music, in her mind. It was all numbers, really, steps and intervals and counting. She'd been able to count for years now. She saw the music, then saw the piano. She hoisted herself onto the bench, tottering dangerously. She looked at the keyboard, which she'd been told before not to touch, but now, now she had to. There was no time to not touch. She saw the music, felt it in her bones, aching, pounding, threatening to destroy her if she did not play it. She quickly counted: eighty-eight keys. Seven octaves and a minor third. She knew this because the prefix oct- meant eight._ _She heard the radio. She was supposed to be reading, and she wasn't supposed to touch the piano, ever, until she was old enough, whatever that meant. But now she had to._

_She scanned the piano. She heard the radio and thought a moment, then struck a note. No, wrong key. She tried another and seemed satisfied, but with what, she couldn't quite know. She added a third and a fifth, making a chord, but it sounded wrong. She took the third down a half step and struck the chord again. There, a better sound; a sadder, darker, more melancholy sound. This was the scale she wanted. She listened another moment, then began, she knew not how, to imitate what she heard._

_Of course they came running, with reprimands and reproaches on their tongues, which of course fell flat when they saw the five-year-old imitating Chopin nearly flawlessly._

Since hearing him for the first time Hermione had been in love with Chopin. She'd been told she should identify with Mozart, himself a prodigy, but after reading about him she wasn't fond of him. Besides, Mozart and Chopin were different musically; Mozart wrote in an era that favored precision and form over expression of emotions. Chopin... you knew what he was feeling when he wrote his music, and you wound up feeling that way yourself when you played it. He could sound playful, and you felt excited and playful as your hands danced along the keyboard. But he could also sound profoundly melancholy, which was how Hermione felt right now.

She sighed and closed her eyes and let her hands roam over the keys, just letting the intricate motor connections between brain and fingers work, never questioning it, never wondering or marveling at how she just innately seemed to know what she was doing.

She couldn't help herself. She couldn't help being herself. She was what she was. She was supposed to be proud of it. She wasn't supposed to touch the piano. She wasn't supposed to give cheek back to her elders, but they didn't want to hear what she had to say. She was supposed to keep quiet and do her work and not draw any more attention to herself than she already did. She struck a particularly violent chord and followed it with a mournful run of sixteenth notes up the scale. Supposed to. Supposed to. Everything about her life was either something she was supposed to, or not supposed to do.

With that realization Hermione felt her mood change, from melancholy and misunderstood to flat-out angry, and her musical choice reflected that. She launched into Beethoven. Beethoven was another one she felt used his music to work through his emotions. He was also one of the few composers she found did anger well, and that was why, now, she launched into his fifth symphony, pounding out those four notes, the four notes of fate knocking on the door. She felt somehow that fate was knocking on her own door, even though she knew that fate probably did not exist. It was merely a series of clever coincidences. People made their own choices and paid the consequences. For every action there was an equal and opposite reaction.

"Hermione! Go to your room!" her father's voice yelled through the wall, waking her from her reverie of emotions and thoughts.

With one last furious chord, which she spitefully let reverberate through the walls, she dashed up to her bedroom, where she leapt on her bed and buried herself under the bedclothes. She didn't know if she should laugh or cry, or feel angry or depressed or just nothing at all. While most people would find the mixed feelings frustrating, Hermione rather enjoyed it in some strange way, because it meant there was something she didn't know. She was so used to knowing everything ahead of time, or knowing more than anyone around her, that for once not knowing something felt... refreshing.

She emerged from the blankets and shoved her hair out of her face and looked around her room. She had to do something; lying here, staring at the ceiling, wasn't stimulating enough. She already felt antsy and agitated as it was; staring at the ceiling and allowing her restless mind to wander aimlessly was asking for something dangerous. It was asking for her to come up with solutions nobody wanted, to problems nobody knew existed. It was asking for her to wallow in her own angst over the fact nobody, parents included, understood the situation.

She climbed back out of bed and picked up her physics book. Once again Misters Feinman and Einstein would be her friends for the evening. She thought about Kimberly Wright, her next door neighbour. Right now Kimberly would be working on her spelling words for the week. She'd probably be doing her long division. And when she was finished she'd have a snack and watch an hour or so of television programming. Then she'd go to bed and dream about ponies or fairies, then wake up, go to her typical year 7 class with her typical year 7 classmates, and learn things Hermione had learned and understood at the age of 6, then repeat her evening routine again, as would just about every other eleven-year-old in the United Kingdom.

This was not working for her, she realized. Going to normal school, at such an accelerated pace, that whole routine was not working for her. Trying to be as normal as possible wasn't working, because it was impossible for her to be normal, at least by anyone's textbook definition of normal. There had to be something, somewhere, for her, that would cater to her undoubtably special needs.

And maybe, just maybe, this Violet Peekins woman was the one to help her. She wasn't sure; she didn't know exactly what to expect, or even if she should bother with this venue. But she had come to a realization this evening. She realized that desperate times called for desperate measures. And that as much as she knew her parents were desperate to do something about her, she was desperate for something to be done.

She pulled out the photocopy of the article on Violet Peekins from _The Spiritualist Informer_, dated March 1991, just two months ago. She scanned the article again. She put away the thought that she was crazy, tucking it in the back of her mind, reassuring herself that it was just a desperate measure to help resolve the desperate situation her family found itself in. Then she took a deep breath, swallowed her pride, and marched back to the dining room.


	4. Chapter 3: Reassurance

_Chapter 3: Reassurance_

_NEW AGE SOLUTIONS_

_by Violet Peekins_

_Serving both Muggles and Wizards with their New Age Needs_

So read the sign on the door of the odd little shop in the odd little neighbourhood just off Charing Cross Road in London. Hermione scrutinized the sign, both intrigued and confused. The name of the shop was legitimate enough as was that of its proprietor. But the last line... serving both Muggle and Wizard? What were Muggles? And surely Wizards didn't exist, and if they did, they would be able to solve their own problems without the help of some occultist or spiritualist or whatever it was this Ms. Peekins preferred to be called.

But the oddest thing about the sign was that neither of her parents seemed able to see that last line about Ms. Peekins's clientele. They read, "New Age Solutions by Violet Peekins. Well, we must be here," Archie said brightly. He was trying to play optimist. "Though in honesty I didn't expect to find much of anything in this section of London. I was beginning to think Dr. Briar had led us pretty far astray!"

"Well, we're here, that's the important thing," Addie said, looking around the neighbourhood nervously. "Come on, let's go in. I feel like... I can't explain... like I'm being watched."

Hermione actually had that feeling as well. They clearly were not the only people here, though they were the only ones standing out in the open. There were eyes watching them, and mouths probably laughing at them as they stood there, uncertain and confused, on the doorstep of Violet Peekins and her New Age Solutions. She peered down alleyways and into cobwebby windows. Sometimes she thought she caught a glimpse of things, people, an odd owl out in the daytime. But these were always fleeting visions and disappeared before she could be absolutely certain. "You are _not_ going crazy," she whispered firmly to herself.

"Hermione, dear, ready?" She looked up to see her father's hand poised over the old-fashioned looking door latch. She nodded resolutely and he disengaged the latch.

There was the tinkle of bells, loud and incongruous against the dim silence of this street. A wash of scents came out, intertwining and seeming to beckon the Granger family inside the dark and mysterious shop. With a sense of grim resolution Archie went first, followed by Addie, who wasn't trying at all to hide her trepidations. Hermione followed last, latching the door behind her. With that one simple action she had a feeling she could not explain. A feeling that this visit to this woman could change everything. It gave her a sense of hope, but she quickly quenched that sense. She was simply giving into the emotional state of things. She was reasonable and logical. She always had been. She needed to approach this with the same state of mind.

The lighting within was stereotypically dim and almost a bit smoky from the burning incense around. Hermione smelled cinnamon, lavender, cardamom, vanilla and sandalwood. She couldn't decide if the mix of scents was pleasing, or murder to her olfactory nerves. She felt her eyes water a bit. Any light in the shop came from candles. In fact, a quick observatory gaze about the room showed her that there appeared to be very few, if any, electrical implements lying around. At the back of the shop a smaller room was closed off, albeit ineffectually, by hanging strands of beads in all sorts of colors. They appeared to be crystal, and caught the dancing candlelight.

They also tinkled pleasantly when they moved, as they did just now. A woman emerged from the back. She was a bit on the large boned side, but she moved through her tiny shop with the grace of a fairy. Hermione had expected her to be wearing a headscarf and a blouse and skirt of hippy influence, or more like gypsies. But the woman, who had to be Violet Peekins, wore a pale purple robe. Not a bathrobe, by any means, but a tailored violet floor-length robe, adorned around the collar by embroidery and sewn on crystal pieces. Her hair was not bound under a scarf in stereotypical gypsy fashion, as Hermione had expected it would be, but instead wound into a complicated looking plait that she allowed to dangle down to the small of her back. And instead of being dark and Eastern European, the way Hermione had expected, her features were far more Nordic: pale blonde hair, deep blue eyes, light skin. Already she had defied everything Hermione had expected of her, which made Hermione feel immediately uncomfortable, and quickly put her on the defensive.

When Violet Peekins finally spoke her voice was reminiscent of the tinkling bells on the door. "Welcome, welcome. You must be the Grangers."

"Did your crystal ball tell you that?" Hermione interjected immediately. She knew it sounded pert and rude, but she felt the need to establish a wall between them straight away.

Violet Peekins stared momentarily at the girl, then at her parents, who appeared simply mortified. She looked back at the girl and smiled. "No, dear, my day timer told me that. As for your names, Archibald, Adeline, and Hermione Granger, my friend Dr. Briar told me those. While I do deal in New Age solutions, which can involve a bit of divination, I also practice good business skills." With that she gave a knowing wink in Hermione's direction. "Why don't you come to the back. We'll sit down and see what we can discover about your little girl."

As defensive and skeptical as Hermione felt she still found herself trailing behind her parents and the purple-clad spiritualist. She followed them behind the crystal curtain and huffed with impatience as a strand of crystals became entangled in her hair. Violet Peekins approached her and tried to assist, but Hermione refused to let herself be helped by this woman. In the end she disengaged, but several strands of her brown hair were caught between the beads and crystals. She took a seat and crossed her arms over her chest, not at all pleased by how the visit was going this early on.

"So. Dr. Briar told me a few things about you, but I'd like to hear you tell me about your predicament."

Archie and Adeline spent the next quarter of an hour going through Hermione's life story and the problems they'd all faced. Hermione sat sullenly, staring at the things around her. She couldn't deny she was disappointed by the lack of a crystal ball in Ms. Peekins's inner sanctum. She'd been looking to use that to disprove the whole New Age thing. She did catch a glimpse of a cauldron on a stand over a miniature fire pit. What that could be used for Hermione did not want to conjecture. As it was her mind was already reciting Act IV scene 1 of Macbeth.

"Hermione."

She looked up suddenly, her thoughts broken into. "Yes, Ms. Peekins?"

The woman smiled. "Oh, call me Violet. Or Vi. I've never been one for formalities. Now. I've been doing some reading and research ever since Quincy Briar rang me up and told me you may be coming to see me."

"Excellent. I'm glad to know this will be steeped in research," Hermione said flatly, her arms still crossed over her chest.

Violet smiled tenderly. "You're a skeptic. It's natural, especially in someone of your talents and abilities. You have a natural predisposition toward questioning everything around you, especially those things which don't seem to have a logical explanation. And to you, what I do is not logical."

"I won't deny that."

"Excellent. This gives us somewhere to begin."

"What exactly are you doing?" Archie broke in, concerned.

"Talking to your daughter. There are a few things I'd like to do after, but I want to start by simply talking to her."

"Oh, I don't know if you'll get much of anywhere, she can be quite impossible sometimes," Addie said nervously.

"I think she and I will get on just fine, given time," Violet said warmly. "Actually, perhaps you two could leave us? There are chairs and some light refreshments out in the foyer." It was less of a suggestion and more of a tacit command.

Hermione watched in surprise as both her parents nodded in agreement and left, the crystal curtain caroling in their wake. "Why did you do that?" she asked.

"I think we'll get somewhere more effectively if they're not here, jumping in after every less than savory thing you say," she said, a slight knowing twinkle in her deep blue, almost indigo, eyes. "I feel that you feel held back. Like you know that no matter what you say they'll jump in and explain it away. Or apologize for you. I don't want that, I want to see you, raw and unimpeded by your parents' presence. I want to talk _to_ _you_, not to them _about you_."

Hermione processed this. Much as she wanted to play defensive, hard-to-get skeptic, Violet Peekins was offering her what she'd wanted since this whole odyssey of specialists and testing had begun. She wanted to talk to her. Hermione uncrossed her arms and leaned in a bit. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Well, I'd like you to tell me a few things about yourself. Then I'll ask you a few questions I've found in my research, then I'll look at your aura and do a reading. Yes, that's the imprecise part of things," she said, noting Hermione's darkened expression. "To you, at least. It's something I've studied and specialized in. And I think, if I'm reading the signs right, it's something you may end up studying as well." She blinked rapidly and came back to the room and the table. "But first things first."

Violet asked Hermione a series of questions, largely related to her interpersonal interactions. To Hermione's surprise she asked very little about her prodigy status or intelligence. She had to admit that it felt good, for once, to come to a 'specialist' and not have that be the focus of the visit.

"How do you feel about systems, Hermione? Rules, regulations, authority... that sort of thing."

Hermione thought for a moment. "Well, I am aware that rules exist to facilitate the running of a society, and that without them it'd be anarchy. If a system existed that was free from consequences, then it'd be chaos. Social norms and mores would fly out the window. It'd be a devolution in human society."

"Yes, I'd agree with that. But how do _you feel_ about it all?"

"Oh, sorry, right. I accept the need for rules and regulations, but feel that they often leave little room for creative approaches to problem solving. Sometimes they're far too rigid. And while they work for the majority, what about the minority? Take the concept of the debtors' prisons in Dickensian London. You have to go to prison because you can't pay your debt? How can you possibly earn enough in prison to pay back a debt? It was asinine. Thankfully things have since changed, but—"

"Alright, alright, I see you've got a bit of a social conscience," Violet said with a smile. "Nothing wrong with that though. We need more young people wanting to make a difference these days."

"I'd like to think I'm one of those," Hermione said simply. "I'm okay with rules that have a reason, but when they're just there and there's no rhyme or reason, _and_ they're horribly unfair to the disenfranchised members of society... that's when I get upset with them."

"As is your right to, Hermione. Now, how are things socially?"

Hermione observably cringed. "You had to ask."

"It's part of my job, Hermione. I'm guessing right away they're not great."

"No... not really," she said, trying to tell herself she could be honest with Violet Peekins. "The hard thing is there's no one out there quite like me. Even the gifted groups my mum has tried haven't done much. The children there are nice enough, and they're gifted. But... that's just it, they're gifted. Most of them aren't prodigies, and most of them really don't seem to care about the things I care about. They all want to play chess and solve maths problems and brag about the languages they learned over the summer."

"What about you?"

"I want to talk about how we can use what we've been given to change the world," Hermione blurted out without even thinking. She clapped her hand over her mouth, brown eyes wide with shock. "I...I..."

"You just told me what you want most in life," Violet said knowingly. She reached out a strong, pale hand and patted Hermione's other hand. "It's alright, dear. We all want something out of life, and sometimes it's tough for us to decide how to do it. And it's tougher because in your position very few people will take you seriously because one, you're really just a child, but two, your attitude is that of a very wise adult. It shows adults their flaws and faults and they don't usually like that. They label you as pert, arrogant, and a problem child, when in fact you intimidate them."

"How can you tell me all this?" Hermione whispered. "It's... it's so true. But you're not a scientist... you can't go to school for things like, like... well, like this!" she said, gesturing to the cauldron and bottles of odd ingredients scattered around the small, candle lit room.

Violet laughed lightly, but not at Hermione's incredulousness. "You'll find, very soon, I imagine, that school isn't always what you think it is. There are other things out in the world, things you can't understand just yet. Now, if you please, I'd like to read your aura."

Hermione didn't know how or at what point she'd suddenly decided to respect this woman, but it must have been very recently, because she felt no desire to refute the idea of an aura reading with some pert, scholarly comment about the lack of scientific credibility to aura readings. She just asked, in an uncharacteristically small voice, "Violet... what's an aura?"

"Oh, right, I'm sorry," Violet said with an apologetic smile. "It's usually a halo of colour surrounding you. In my line of work we use it to identify body malfunctions–you know, if a medical doctor is having trouble diagnosing an illness, the patient could see someone like me, and we'd look at the aura and be able to tell where the disturbance was. Knowing that, the aura could be used to heal. It's the manifestation of life energy in every living person," she finished, her voice so convincing that even Hermione the genius skeptic almost believed her right then and there. "Come on, dear, close your eyes and let me work my magic."

Hermione obeyed without question. She sat straight in the chair, eyes closed, but still able to see the shadows of Violet's hands passing before her eyelids. She tried to relax, to breathe deeply, to ignore the strange sensations that were growing within her entire body. And then it felt almost as though she could see faint hints of deep blue behind her closed eyelids. The blue grew deeper and deeper until it was almost black.

Hermione gasped and her eyelids flew open. Only instead of seeing Violet sitting across from her at the small table she saw the dancing flames and shadows on the ceiling. She was prostrate, staring up. The carpet beneath her was soft, clean, black shag. She tried to find her voice, but it was hard. "Wh...what... happened," she croaked, trying to sit up.

Violet appeared at her side and helped her to a sitting position, though would not let her back into the chair. "You need to sit for a bit. You blacked out. Probably forgot to breathe. Her, sip this."

Hermione took the silver goblet Violet offered to her and took a swig, expecting water. It had the consistency of water, but somehow made her feel stronger, better than any water could make her feel after something like this. "Everything went blue before I passed out," she confessed quietly.

"Yes, I noted your Ajna Chakra, the Indigo one, is particularly strong."

"What does it do?" Hermione asked, forgetting for the moment that she was not supposed to place any truth or belief in things as silly as auras. Any aura she needed to be concerned with was back at the chemistry lab, in the mass spectrometer. Or was it?

"The Ajna Chakra is the one associated with the Third Eye." She laughed gently when she saw Hermione's hand fly up to touch her forehead. "No, no, Hermione. It's not a physical thing. It's metaphysical. It has to do with your awareness of time. It gives you a unique sense of intuition that many children your age lack."

"What does this mean for the rest of my life?" Hermione asked, sounding miserable. "It may explain some of my personality, but it doesn't help the situation much."

"Oh, I think it does," Violet said. "I think knowing this will make a future occurrence seem a bit less strange to you and your family. And I think it'll make a decision about that occurrence very easy for you."

"Now you're using your crystal ball," Hermione grumbled, trying to get back up to her feet.

"No, tea leaves," Violet said with a wink, helping her. "But in honesty, you are a gifted child in many different ways. Not all of them bad," she added. "You have potential to do amazing things."

"I know that, I've been told that all my life."

"But something is coming that will make that a reality." Violet firmly steered Hermione through the curtain, being careful not to get her bushy hair tangled in the strands again. "Your daughter's going to be even greater than she is now," she announced, delivering a still-pale Hermione to her parents. "Something will happen in just a few short weeks, something that you won't expect, and probably won't understand, but need to accept and allow Hermione to decide upon."

"Oh..." was all Addie and Archie could say, flashing puzzled looks between one another. They then looked toward their pale and swaying daughter. "Hermione!"

"Don't worry, she'll be fine," Violet reassured them. "Just give her some warm tea and a long lie-in tomorrow, and I guarantee she'll be back to her usual shenanigans in no time."

"Thank you, Ms. Peekins," Archie said, rising and taking out his checkbook. "How much do we owe you?"

Violet suddenly looked far more serious and imposing than she had looked all afternoon. "I can't accept your payment for this. It's not every day someone in my line of work meets someone like your daughter. The pleasure was truly all mine, and I can't accept your money." She ushered the Grangers out of her shop. "Thank you again. Please phone, or call again," she added. And finally, "Hermione... you will find your place," she called reassuringly.

Addie and Archie smiled politely and Hermione waved, lackluster as her parents led her away from the shop. It was only when they'd boarded the tube she realized that she'd completely forgotten to ask about Muggles and Wizards.


	5. Chapter 4: Reminders

_Chapter 4: Reminders_

The end of term passed without incident for Hermione. Well, without any incident that was more unusual than those that did follow her on a regular basis. She had never quite forgotten the impact left on her by Violet Peekins. She never stopped thinking about the large-boned Scandinavian-featured spiritualist and that shade of deep, dark blue that had seemed to envelop her.

She had never stopped thinking about it, but she had stopped giving it any credit for her behaviours and talents. She had bigger fish to fry, idiomatically speaking, of course. She had prepared a working experiment in light refraction for her physics A-levels, complete with findings to her hypotheses. It promised to be the project that pushed her into the Upper Sixth Form for certain the following September. And it was apt that she should refer to it in the past tense, because the morning of the judging she confidently entered the science building, prepared to put the finishing touches on her setup, only to find her project... missing.

It wasn't vandalized, for that she thanked whatever deity happened to be listening at the moment. But it was simply gone. Her table was empty. No professionally prepared poster (or at least it looked professional–in reality Hermione had done it entirely on her own). No interactive portion. No prisms, no light source. Just an empty table.

Hermione tried to calm her pounding heart and take some deep breaths. There was something logical. Cleaning staff had moved it. Or the teachers had locked her fragile light source and prism combination away for fear of having it broken. Yet solidly clenched to the back of her mind was the idea of sabotage. She had no proof, no suspects, yet plenty of people with motive. That had to be it. There was no way her project could simply disappear except this way.

There was no sense in looking about anymore, and no sense staying; it was the last scheduled day of the school year and people would be congratulating one another on a good year, or hugging their friends and wishing each other well on their summer holidays. Hermione was the last person people would congratulate; she was a pariah among her classmates, and even her teachers. No one cared what she was doing over the summer holidays; in fact they probably wished she'd disappear as quietly, and without any trace, the way her project had. She was probably reading far too much into it, but that was the tacit message Hermione read from all of this. Her project, which she'd put so much work into, was gone without any clues. _You can do the same_, faceless, disembodied voices seemed to say to her.

Fighting back tears Hermione spun and ran out of the building. It was at least two kilometers home, but she didn't care. She ran the whole way, trying desperately not to cry, and hoping desperately her parents had already gone to the practice for a day of cleaning and drilling and filling, and cleaning all over again.

"Mum! Da! I'm home!" she yelled, breathless and defiant, when she got home. She hunched over, hand still on the doorknob. She listened, but heard only silence in response. She was alone.

For once Hermione was glad to be alone, truly alone. She was always an island, surrounded by people, reminded that she was alone. Even at home her parents banded together to form a strong, supportive mainland against the unstable island that was Hermione. They had one another. Her peers and teachers, they had one another. Hermione was alone. Only this time she was truly alone, with no one to question, or judge or sneer. So she let herself cry.

She sank to the green plush hall carpeting, door still open, a light June breeze rifling through the papers on the hall table and sending them fluttering to the ground. Hermione automatically reached out and shuffled them back into a pile, but one envelope caught her eye.

It was a heavy cream parchment, addressed in emerald ink, and sealed on the back with an old-fashioned wax seal bearing the letter H. It was addressed to her. The address was precise and written in flowing emerald green script. There was no stamp, and no return address. It looked as if the postman had simply forgotten to check for proper postage when he delivered it. Or perhaps the postman hadn't delivered it...

Violet Peekins's words came back to her with all the force of a hurricane. _"Something will happen in just a few short weeks, something that you won't expect, and probably won't understand, but need to accept and allow Hermione to decide upon."_

Was this that something?

Hermione thought perhaps she should wait until her parents came home to open the letter, discuss whatever the contents were, proceed from there. But somehow she felt possessive and protective of the letter. It was addressed, after all, to Hermione J. Granger, not to the parents of Hermione J. Granger, as so many letters and other pieces of post were. What would be the harm in opening a letter addressed to her and left where she was bound to find it?

Furtively, though no one else was home, Hermione clicked the front door shut and stole up the stairs with her pilfered letter. She felt her heart pounding again, but now it was from the excitement of the quest, rather than dismay at her project. In fact the notice of the letter had made her altogether forget about the project.

She sat down on the edge of her neatly made bed and carefully broke the wax seal. She held her breath as she opened the flap and shook out two sheets of heavy, creamy parchment, very similar to the envelope in make and weight. They too were covered with flowing emerald script. Her trembling hands picked up the cover sheet and her eyes began reading.

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY_

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore  
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

_  
Dear Miss Hermione Jane Granger,_

We are pleased to inform you that you have been chosen to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September (or when you happen to register). We await your owl after registration. 

_Sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_Deputy Headmistress_

Hermione stared and stared, once again unsure of how she should feel. Part of her wanted to believe this, that this Hogwarts school did exist and was a reality, and was a place for her to go to get away from project saboteurs. But most of her felt cold and shaky. She felt anger growing within herparticularly when she scanned the list of 'necessary books and equipment':

**Uniform**  
_First year students will require:_

Three sets of plain work robes (black)

One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear

One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)

One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)

_Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags!_

**Set Books**  
_All students should have a copy of each of the following:_

The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) _by Miranda Goshawk_

A History of Magic _by Bathilda Bagshot_

Magical Theory _by Adalbert Waffling_

A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration _by Emeric Switch_

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi _by Phyllida Spore_

Magical Drafts and Potions _by Arsenius Jigger_

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them _by Newt Scamander_

The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection _by Quentin Trimble_

**Other Equipment**

1 wand

1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)

1 set glass or crystal phials

1 telescope

1 set brass scales

_Students may also bring an owl, a cat, or a toad._

**PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS**!

Hermione was furious! Who would dare send her something like this? What school in its right mind would tell her to buy a cauldron and a telescope as part of her schooling supplies? What school would allow her to bring an owl, cat, or toad, and moreover, why would she want to bring one?

"Whose idea of a joke is this?" she shouted at the empty house. "I'm a genius! I know better than this!" she screamed, grabbing the letter and list and preparing to tear them in half, but something, she knew not what, stopped her. As absurd as the letter and list appeared to be, they were far too detailed to be the work of anyone she knew, or who knew her. Plus, her family had kept it very quiet that they'd gone to a New Age specialist, so no one could possibly really know any of this. She couldn't show her parents, who would think it an elaborate scheme she'd cooked up to get out of punishment for the project incident. They'd just smile nervously at one another, as they were so good at doing, and ask her to go to her room.

No, there was only one person who would really understand all of this. Hermione knew that going to see this person entailed taking the tube from the outlying neighbourhoods where she and her family lived, into the central part of London where Violet Peekins's shop was. She didn't know how she'd managed it, but in moments she was down at the tube station not far from her house, staring at the map of the London Underground.

It would be a fairly easy venture, if she remembered what exchanges she needed to get off at, but memory had never been an issue for Hermione Granger. She peered at the map. It looked like she'd need to take the Central Line into the city, then exchange at Tottenham Court Road for the Northern Line, and she could either disembark at Tottenham Court Road, or go down to Leicester Square. Either way, from there, she was sure she could recall the twisting streets and alleyways to Violet Peekins's. She confidently purchased her tickets with the money her parents had given her for lunch and an after school treat, then sat down, alone, and stared out the window at the rushing countryside, then cityscape, rather than at the letter folded in her pocket.

It was raining when she disembarked at Tottenham Court Road, emerging from darkness of the Underground into the gray of mid-afternoon London life. She looked around, trying to get her bearings, as well as trying not to look like a child with no clue about what she was doing. How many times had she been told she was an adult in a child's body? Now was one time she had to truly feel that. With a feeling of resolution she set off along the bustling sidewalks, ignoring the chilly, early June rain that started to soak through her clothes. She headed east, dodging the quizzical looks of passersby, holding her head high and looking like she was on a mission.

It seemed like forever, though she'd barely gone half a kilometer, when she arrived at the intersection for Charing Cross Road. She remembered taking this road only a few weeks ago. She passed a theatre called the Phoenix, and then Foyle's Bookshop. And then she spotted something she'd not spotted before, probably because she'd been too focused on remaining skeptical. Between a record store and a bookshop, larger than Foyle's, which she'd just passed, was a tavern. It looked shabby and unkept. The windows were cobwebby and she thought she saw shadows within. And she felt the sensation of eyes again, eyes watching her and appraising her.

She turned and ran quickly. There was a small alleyway she ducked into, just around the corner from the mysterious pub, where she caught her breath. By now the rain was coming down more steadily, and she wondered if it would make the green ink in her letter blur and run and become illegible, and her clandestine trip to Violet Peekins would have been in vain. She closed her eyes and tried to fight the warmth growing there. She felt like a lost eleven-year-old again. Once again she felt like she didn't belong here. She sniffled and looked up, torn between continuing the search and giving up and going home.

Where once had been a brick wall was now the entrance to New Age Solutions by Violet Peekins. And Hermione still saw the line about servicing Muggles and Wizards. Now, with the letter in her pocket, the concept of wizards did not seem so far-fetched. Teeth chattering she approached the door and opened the latch. The tinkling of the doorbells was somehow comforting, as was the odd mix of scents from Violet's incense. For the first time on this adventure Hermione felt she'd done the right thing.

"Ms. Peekins! Violet!" she called, wincing at just how loud her voice sounded in Violet's delicate shop. She pulled out her letter and list, glad to see the ink hadn't smudged, and waited.

Violet came out in no time, wearing a robe in a different shade of purple, but no less embellished. Her hair was immaculately plaited once again. "Hermione Granger. I didn't expect to see you here so soon. Crystal ball or none," she added with a wink. Hermione's face told her quickly that the girl was in no joking mood. "Come in and tell me what's troubling you."

Hermione did not wait to go in. As the started for the back she shoved the letter in Violet's face. "What's this? Is this your idea of a joke? It's not funny! We came to you for help!"

Violet turned around. "Calm down, Hermione. Are your parents here? No? You're here alone?" She suddenly looked quite worried. "Do they know you're here? Probably not. What's got you upset, love, we'll try to put a fix to it." She led Hermione to the back and sat her down at the table before taking a seat herself. "Come now, what's bothering you?"

Hermione slammed the letter on the table in front of Violet and waited, her teeth chattering and gooseflesh forming on her arms. Violet's shop was pleasantly warm, but she still felt cold and knew it was from more than the rain. She watched Violet as her deep blue eyes scanned the green-scripted letter. She watched for any sign of concern, or anything that would give away fraud on the spiritualist's part, but the only thing Hermione saw was a wide, proud smile forming. "What?" she asked impatiently. "What is it?"

"You, dear, have been accepted at Hogwarts!"

"Yes, that's what the letter says," Hermione said crossly. "Are you saying it's not a fraud?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying." Violet leaned in closer and met Hermione's eyes. "Remember last month when I told you that school isn't always exactly what you think it is? Well, this is the case here. Hogwarts is a very real school for very real children who have very special abilities."

"It's a school for people like me?"

"Well, not necessarily, Hermione. Did you see my sign, outside?" Hermione nodded slowly. "I figured you would have. You have the predisposition for magical abilities. You can see things that aren't there. Well, aren't there to regular people—Muggles. Non-magic folk."

"But I'm not magical," Hermione said. "I'm a prodigy who sees deep blue before passing out because I'm so smart I forgot to breathe," she spat out. "And now I'm seeing things? Sounds more like I may be going crazy."

"No, you're not, trust me," Violet said quickly. "I know you don't want to believe this, but you must. This is it, Hermione. Your chance. What you were waiting for. Hogwarts is a school to train young witches and wizards. You have the aptitude already. Hogwarts will teach you how to use it."

"Are you telling me that being a genius is just because I have magic? That I magicked up my marks?" Hermione asked dully.

"Not at all. That part of you is what it is, and will carry you far in life, both in this world and the Wizarding world. But there's another part to you and your abilities, which I saw when I did your aura that day. You have the abilities. This letter is very real."

"My parents will never believe it," she said glumly.

"They don't have to believe it, at least not right away. They just have to accept it. What's important is that you believe it, and are willing to go for it," Violet said, forcing Hermione to meet her steady indigo gaze. "Are you?"

Hermione thought of the events of just that day that had brought her to this point. Her missing, probably destroyed final science project... the feelings of loneliness at home... the strange tavern and the concept of wizards and Muggles... "Yes," she said softly, even surprising herself. "I do. I do believe it."

Violet smiled kindly and reached over to pat Hermione's hand. "Good. Now, I'll take you over to the Leaky Cauldron for something hot to drink and chase that chill. While you're there I'll pop over to Diagon Alley and pick up a book I think you'll like, that will help you to understand everything a bit more."

They started out the door, when Hermione realized something. "Violet... if you're a witch, how does Dr. Briar's wife know you?"

"Always the observant one. Yes, you'll do well in the wizarding world," Violet said, almost more to herself than to Hermione. "Rita came to see me for some help balancing her auras and calming her restless spirit. Apparently her husband was slowly driving her crazy," she said with a twinkle in her deep blue eyes. "We just slowly became good friends over the course of her visits."

"Does she know you're a–a–witch?" Hermione asked, finding it hard to equate this kind and helpful woman with her preconceived notion of a witch.

"No, she's a Muggle... about as Muggle as they come, really, though she's got some interesting points things with her purple coloured chakra... silly me," she said. "Mumbling. Rita's a Muggle and so's the quack husband of hers, though he did to the right thing sending you my way." She locked the door of her shop behind her. "This way, dear."

Hermione nearly had to jog to keep up with the larger woman. "What about you? Were your parents magic, too?"

"Nope. Completely in the dark, I was, when my letter came. I had to find things out the hard way. So I'm happy to try and make this a bit easier for you. Here we are, The Leaky Cauldron. Tom will get you something warm to drink, and I'll get you something I think will be of interest to you."

An hour later Hermione was warm, sleepy, and in possession of a thick tome titled _Hogwarts: A History_, which Violet had bought for her. It was an old text, seeming to come from a different time and place than any history book Hermione had ever studied out of. And it smelled like an old book, a scent she didn't realize she'd love so much. She sat in the passenger seat of Violet's small car. "I had to learn to drive for Muggle Studies," she explained, shifting, and wincing at the slight grinding of the gears. "I don't drive that often," she apologized. Hermione only smiled lazily.

It was a bit late when they finally pulled up to the Granger's house, and Violet sat a moment, trying to figure out how to proceed. "Just tell them the truth," Hermione said simply, around a yawn. "I came to London to see you, you helped me, and brought me home because it was too late for me to ride the trains alone."

"That works well enough," Violet said. "And Hermione... I'm going to need to show them the letter. To remind them of what they wanted for you, and that it is possible for them to get that. Are you alright with that?"

Hermione yawned again and hauled _Hogwarts: A History_ out of the car. "I suppose I'll have to be," she said. She pulled the letter out, spying the green coloured ink. Only this time instead of feeling angry or uncertain, she felt a reminder that there was some place out there that wanted her. And that was a good reminder to have.


	6. Chapter 5: Reproaches

_Chapter 5: Reproaches_

"Thank you so much, Ms. Peekins, truly, sorry for _any_ inconvenience," Archie gushed while Addie stood across the kitchen, arms crossed over her chest, lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. "We honestly never would have expected this from our daughter, though I don't think we're too surprised—"

Violet held her hand up, effectively cutting off Archie's embarrassed babbling. "It was no inconvenience at all, really, Archie. If anything it was nice to see Hermione again. I was pretty sure after your visit that I'd see her soon." She smiled and seemed to shrink down to a less imposing size. "The important thing is she's safe, you know."

"I know, but... to run off into London? Skiving off of school? On the last day?" He shook his head, flashed a glance in Hermione's direction, and then turned back to Violet. "I'm sorry, again, for her behaviours. I assure you it won't happen again."

"Da, you sound like you're talking to the police," Hermione said glumly, hands in the pockets of her hooded jumper, gingerly fingering the parchment letter still tucked away there. She wondered when would be the best opportunity to broach the letter: once Violet left, or with her still here, to explain things to her parents the way she'd explained them to Hermione.

"Hermione, please stay out of this," Addie said quietly. "Really, I don't think now is the best time."

Violet looked between the Grangers. The parents were both livid and obviously at wits' end. Hermione slumped in a kitchen chair looking pale and weary and far older than eleven years of age. "I'll leave you all to talk," she said, giving a surreptitious nod of encouragement to Hermione, who looked up, brown eyes wide with sudden panic. "I think you will all have a lot to talk about, and decisions to make." Violet bowed slightly and took her leave, leaving the Grangers alone in the kitchen.

"Archie..." Addie began. "I don't know what to do now."

"Neither do I, Add. Neither do I."

Hermione listened to her parents and looked between them, trying to read their expressions. She felt the way she felt when she heard Beethoven, felt the shaking of emotions vibrating within her heart and mind and out into her limbs. She clenched her hands into fists in her jumper pockets, feeling the crumpled parchment in her trembling left hand. "Stop," she finally said in a quiet voice that betrayed her seething rage.

"You're really in no position to be telling us what to do, young lady!" Addie snapped. "When your teachers phone about things like this we try to defend you. We try to explain your behaviour. We back you up, and then you go and do something like this? Running off to London without permission, on a school day no less! Bothering that Peekins woman! Worrying us sick!"

"Stop talking about me!" Hermione finally shouted, leaping out of her seat. "You always talk about me, you never talk to me! It's like I'm bloody invisible!"

"Don't you dare speak to your mum that way!" Archie broke in. "She's right. What you did was irresponsible and thoughtless. You're always thinking, why didn't you think this time!"

Hermione found herself so angry she couldn't even find words to speak if she'd wanted to. Instead she yanked her hands out of her pockets and slammed the crumpled, yet still pristine and unsmudged parchment on the table.

"What's this?" Addie said darkly.

"It was with the post, on the front table," Hermione choked out. "Were you trying to hide it from me?"

"I don't even remember seeing it." Addie snatched up the letter, and Archie moved over beside his wife and read over her shoulder. The kitchen table now served as a barrier between Hermione and her parents, making them appear as if in a battle. "You said it was with the post?" she asked, only this time her voice was softer, and almost more gentle. "Our post?"

"Yes. I came home from school early. I didn't intend to skive off. I got there and my project... it was gone," Hermione said, hardly believing that had happened earlier today. Her day felt so long already. "I didn't think," she finished. "I just couldn't stay."

"You should have talked to somebody about it."

"No one listens," Hermione said softly. "No one. Ever. Not even you two."

"Hermione–"

"No, please, let me finish," she implored. "I came home, and when I opened the door a breeze blew the post off the table and this was there. I thought it was all a joke, but at the same time I didn't and no one else could help me decipher it so I just went to Violet's," she finished. "I needed to talk to someone about it," she added.

"Why didn't you wait for one of us to get home?" Addie asked, sinking back into a chair, looking pale, but not with anger.

"I couldn't wait. I had to know."

"Hermione, your mother and I will have to talk about this," Archie said, rubbing his forehead. "We'll all talk tomorrow, but for now..." His voice trailed off expectantly.

"You want me to leave so you can talk about me," Hermione stated. "No! I want to be part of the discussion for once!"

"You may be a genius, but I am still your father, and I am telling you to go to your room," Archie boomed, startling both Addie and Hermione. "Whether you _needed to _or not, you acted irresponsibly and you need to go think about that. Think about the fact that genius or not, you are still our daughter and you are still only eleven years old. Go." He glowered at his daughter.

"But—"

"Go _now!"_

Hermione shoved her chair back so hard it tipped backward and clattered to the floor. She ran up the stairs, her feet pounding loudly even through the carpeting. She was all the way up to her room before she remembered she'd left _Hogwarts: A History_ at the kitchen table.

* * *

"To tell the truth, I'm surprised to see you again," Quincy Briar, child psychologist, said, trying to hide his dismay as he looked between the weary parents and their sullen prodigy daughter. No more bright precocious commentary from Hermione this time! He found himself slightly glad for this, but was a bit wary of why the Granger family had returned to him. "What brings you back?"

"We went to visit Violet Peekins," Archie said, "at your recommendation."

"Ah yes. How was Vi? Was she helpful?"

"We're not sure, because she didn't involve us in her discussion with Hermione," Archie said. "But she showed up at our door a fortnight ago with Hermione, who had skived off of school to go into London and see her."

Dr. Briar nodded slowly. "I see," he said, when in fact, he didn't. "What brings you back?" _I thought I was pretty clear last time I couldn't help,_ he thought, but instead of voicing those thoughts he pasted on a smile.

"Hermione thinks she's... well, we think Hermione's losing it, to be honest," Addie said, reaching over and taking her husband's hand. "She claims she got a letter in the post from this... magic school. There was a book list and everything! It was on parchment with green ink and a wax seal on the envelope..." she shrugged helplessly.

"We think it's an elaborate scheme she's cooked up," Archie added. "Some sort of attention cry or something. Blaming her antics on a letter from a false school. School for magic, at that!" he added, forcing a guffaw.

Dr. Briar nodded again. "It certainly sounds like something a child would do, particularly one who is as clever as your daughter. What do you have to say about it, Hermione?"

Hermione started to answer, but Archie jumped in. "She denies it, of course."

At that moment there was a commotion at the door of the conference room, and Violet Peekins burst in, followed by Dr. Briar's harried-looking secretary. "I'm sorry, doctor, I told her you were in a conference," huffed the secretary.

"Let the girl speak!" Violet exclaimed. "Let her speak for herself instead of you being her voice!"

"Violet!" Dr. Briar squeaked, leaping out of his seat. "You can't barge in on this—what's the meaning of—wait, why are you here?"

"Something told me they'd come back to you, so I closed the shop for the day and hurried here as quickly as I could," Violet said. "Come now, Quincy, where are your manners? Aren't you going to offer me a seat?"

Dr. Briar looked, bewildered and nervous, between Violet and the Grangers. Adeline and Archibald looked furious, but for the first time Hermione seemed more like the precocious and excited child he remembered. "I... I... I'm not sure what to say," he said finally.

"I don't want that woman in here, filling our daughter's head with more ridiculous ideas about wizarding schools and—and—_enabling_ her quest for attention!" Archie exclaimed, and Addie nodded furiously in agreement.

"She's not enabling me!" Hermione finally said, sitting up straighter.

"Stay out of this, Hermione," Addie said.

"Has Hermione ever lied to you before?" Violet asked, before anyone could say anything else. "Has she ever played you false?"

Archie and Addie looked at one another and shrugged, forgetting for a moment to be angry and defensive. "No, this would probably be the first time."

"Then why is it so hard to believe that just maybe she's telling the truth?" Violet reproached. "She's a sweet girl, if a bit overwhelming to be around." She winked at Hermione, who smiled in spite of herself. "If she's never lied to you before, or played attention games before, why would she start now?" She turned on Dr. Briar. "And you, Quincy, mister child psychologist, siding with her parents."

"Violet... Vi... This is... not the way I'd like this to go..." he stammered, but couldn't meet Violet's eyes.

"Mr. and Mrs. Granger," Violet began, her voice softer and less reproachful. "We all should talk, your daughter included. There are things you need to know and accept for your daughter to ever be happy in this life."

"What makes you so certain you know what's best for our daughter?" snapped Addie. "You're a–a—spiritualist!"

"I prefer Witch, with specialties in Divination and Muggle Studies," Violet said, her deep blue eyes sparkling with mischief at the blank looks everyone, everyone except Hermione, that was, flashed at her. "Please, trust me and trust your daughter in this. You have nothing to lose by trusting in this matter," she advised.

"Please, Mum. Please, Da," Hermione said softly. "She's right."

Archie and Addie both looked on the verge of tears, clearly out of options and reduced once again to desperation. "What do we have to do?"

"Come back to my shop in a fortnight and all will be revealed. Until then, go home. Rest, try to be a family. Come on, let's go." She gestured for the Grangers to follow her out the door of Dr. Briar's conference room. Why they obeyed they would never quite understand, but there was a definite release of tensions when the exited the confines of the small conference room. Hermione mouthed a 'thank you' at Violet, who smiled back reassuringly.

Once the Grangers had left Violet turned back to Dr. Briar. "I'm truly sorry for that, Quincy, but you must admit, you weren't getting anywhere with them."

"That was beyond unorthodox, Violet. Do you know what trouble I could be in with the boards? It violates everything to do with confidentiality—"

"Oh, calm down, Quincy, they seemed to think things had resolved themselves quite nicely."

"You call _that _resolved? They left because you told them to! They were probably scared of you when you said you were a witch! What was that about, anyway? I can just kiss my practice, my whole career, goodbye—"

Violet sighed and reached into a flap on her lavender velvet robe. She extracted her hand. "Quincy." Dr. Briar looked over at her. She smiled. _"Obliviate."_


	7. Chapter 6: Ramifications

_Chapter 6: Ramifications_

With school out for the summer holidays Adeline and Archibald Granger usually found that they had less to worry about on a day to day basis, as far as their daughter was concerned. But this summer found them facing entirely different problems.

Normally their practice closed down for a week in early July for summer holidays. Hygienists and their families took trips to the countryside. The other dentist often took his second wife and her two sons to the villa in Tuscany that had luckily remained his in the divorce agreement. Addie and Archie were always politely asked what their plans were for holiday, and they always politely said that they needed to play things by ear. It was well known that their daughter was highly unusual, and any plans made could be, and often were, changed at the drop of a hat by the need for another test, or another specialist visit, or by the sheer nature of Hermione's intelligence, which made a holiday... well, anything but a holiday.

This summer promised to be no different in that respect, and when the dentists and hygienists bid one another farewell and wished each other happy summer travels, Addie and Archie both sighed, packed into their car, and headed home, where Hermione was under the care of a sitter. It was a formality, really, since Hermione had always been incredibly self-sufficient, but had of late proven to be _too_ self-sufficient. The sitter served now as a precaution as well, hoping to prevent any more unplanned trips into London.

"Well. Nice to be out of the office," Archie said, as he put the key into the ignition. "Nice to have a week off."

"Quite," Addie replied. This had been the nature of their speech since ten days ago in Quincy Briar's office. Conversation was strained and polite, with commentary on the obvious from one spouse, and a terse, monosyllabic reply from the other.

"Nice not to have to rush to catch a plane or ferry."

"Very."

"Addie... what _should_ we do?" he asked, reversing out of the parking space and maneuvering onto the main road.

"Well, it's a bit late to plan anything. Maybe a day trip to a museum."

"Well, yes, that would be nice," he said. "But I meant about... you know... going back to see that woman." He didn't have to mention the name of Violet Peekins for Addie to know about whom he was speaking.

"Archie, I thought we'd decided not to," she said, turning to stare out the window.

"We decided to do what would be best for Hermione." He downshifted and applied the brake as they approached a stoplight. "I just thought that maybe this may be it."

"Archie, you heard what she said about being a witch! I know Hermione's a bit... odd sometimes, but do you really want to keep filling her head with these notions?" She sighed, her breath fogging up a small area on the window.

"I know, but what if she's right? What if a place does exist beyond what we think, and into what we imagine?" He looked over at his wife and tentatively patted her shoulder.

"Not you, too."

"Well, not me, not yet, but–" The shriek of a horn interrupted him, and he looked up to see the traffic light had turned green. He hit the gas and clutch simultaneously and ground the gears. The car bucked and leapt into motion, and eventually smoothed itself out. "I'm just saying, Hermione's miserable. She'll go into Upper Sixth in September, and probably take her A-levels by November, and then what? She could take the A-levels now and get top marks and go to University but is it what's best for her?"

"Well, is filling her mind with New Age mysticism and witchcraft going to be any better?" Addie challenged, finally turning to face her husband.

"I don't know, and I don't think any of us will know until we go back to see the Peekins woman."

"So that's the decision then."

"I think it's for the best. We really have nothing to lose by it," he pointed out as they approached their home. "Besides, I think a day trip could do Hermione some good. She just sits in her room reading that huge book she brought back from London that time."

"What's it even about?" Addie asked, climbing out of the car and heading for the front door.

"Some history book. Scholarly, as usual."

Hermione, however, knew exactly what she was reading—no, not reading, mentally devouring! _Hogwarts: A History_ turned out to be far more interesting than anything she'd ever before called interesting, from both a historical and anthropological standpoint, that was. Somehow learning about a school established over a millennium ago was far more fascinating than revolutions and Saxon tribes and Medieval Church corruption could ever be. It also seemed that Hogwarts predated, and what was more, survived even the Normand Conquest in 1066! Hermione found this of particular interest. The Normand French had effectively quashed Saxon life, taking over lands and holdings and establishing their language, politics, and religion over the conquered peoples. How had Hogwarts, an educational establishment, survived such a thorough and meticulous overthrow?

It was questions like these that kept her reading voraciously. With most textbooks she could skim down the pages, taking mental photographs and retaining the information, while at the same time comprehending it perfectly, but this book was different. She read in-depth, poring over each page, perusing paragraphs, and pausing to pontificate upon all of it. She couldn't explain why she believed this to be real, but she did. She was doing something she'd never done before: accepting something on faith alone, which made it even more clear to her that this was something she had to do. In fact, she'd never been more sure of anything in her short life.

And that was why, four days later, Hermione and her family found themselves once again standing outside of Violet Peekins's shop. Hermione clutched the heavy tome to her chest, as if treasuring the information it contained, or as if holding onto what she believed now to be some sort of destiny. Her mind swam with thoughts of ghosts and secret passages and ancient feuds, names like Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin: names she let roll around her mind, marveling at how noble and dignified they sounded, despite their alien and, currently obscure, meanings. Muggle Repelling Charms, Anti-Apparation Charms, Unplottable Charms, these too swam through her mind.

"You know," she said suddenly, one hand poised over the latch of the shop, "I feel alive again." She entered, leaving her confused parents to follow a few steps behind. It was true, no matter how strange her parents thought it was. For so long Hermione had been invigorated by learning and the absorption of knowledge; it was what kept her going. And then she'd hit a wall. She didn't know what to do, because it seemed her teachers had taught her all they knew, leaving her with a feeling of emptiness and disappointment. But here was a whole new world with new knowledge and new information, ready to open up to her...

"Ah, you came," tinkled Violet's voice, breaking through Hermione's newly happy thoughts. "I thought you might." She welcomed the Grangers in with open arms, sharing a secret grin with Hermione at the way her parents still seemed hesitant. "Again, I apologize for what happened at Quincy's, it seems ages ago, doesn't it?" She laughed lightly and waved it off with a flick of her hand. "But that's not important, what _is_ important is that you all came!"

"Don't sound so pleased," Addie said coldly. "We're here because we don't know what else to do about Hermione, and if this is a viable option we'll go with it."

Violet nodded politely and became serious. "Why don't you take a seat? There are some things I think we need to talk about and you need to understand, both about your daughter and about this opportunity she has." All three Grangers obeyed. "Now, some things Hermione and I have already discussed, and more things she's read about in that book she's carting about with her. Have you enjoyed it, dear?"

"Oh, immensely!" Hermione exclaimed, a familiar lively spark returning to her deep brown eyes. "There's just so much to learn, and so many questions I have—"

"Alright, alright, dear," Violet said, laughing and holding up her hand to stop Hermione. "I'm glad. Now. I've done some reading and research and spent time with Hermione, and I'm convinced of one thing: Hermione is what we call an Indigo Child." She said this solemnly and paused, as if waiting for some sort of recognition of the term, and some similar expression of awe on the Grangers' part. When the only reaction she received was a group of blank stares, she sighed. "It's very significant; it's just starting to be discussed in New Age circles, and may actually be helpful to those of us in the Muggle Relations end of business."

"I'm afraid I don't understand," Archie finally said.

"I had my suspicions when I read her aura that first visit. It was dark blue—indigo—signifying her Ajna, or indigo chakra was very strong in her. It's the chakra that governs a person's understanding and perception of time. It's the Third Eye, metaphysically speaking."

"What does this have to do with our daughter?" Addie said, sounding exasperated. "Did you bring us here to fill us with a bunch of metaphysical, New Age-y mumbo-jumbo?"

"No. But knowing that her Indigo Chakra is so strong, combined with all of her other talents and abilities, make her status as an Indigo definite. Any doubts any one of us may have had about this were erased by the arrival of her Hogwarts letter. Hermione," she said, turning her attention to the girl, "why don't you tell your parents what you've been reading."

Hermione nodded. "Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago by four great witches and wizards. They wanted to establish a school, an environment, where children from magic families would be able to safely pursue magical studies."

"But we're not a magical family."

"No," Hermione said regretfully. "I know that, but there are students who go there who have maybe just one magic parent and the ability was passed on to them, possibly genetically. And then there's the occasional student... well... like me," she finished. "Now, I don't know if I have any magical ability; I may or may not—"

"You do, if you got that letter," Violet interrupted, rolling her eyes in exaggerated mockery. "I thought you were intelligent, girl." She winked, and somehow that broke the tension.

"So you're telling us our daughter can do magic," Addie said, hunching in her chair.

"She will be able to, once she's had her training at Hogwarts," Violet said. "It's all part of the ramifications of being an Indigo Child. From what my colleagues, non-magical, that is, have told me, Indigo Children display a set of characteristics and abilities undocumented before. Now, in the Wizarding world, there have been documented cases of children of Muggle parents having magical abilities. Just the same, there are children of wizarding parents who are born without any magical abilities. We call them Squibs," she added. "But that's not important."

"Why, then, is Hermione so special if this... other world has documented other children like her?" Archie asked, mystified.

"Because she's not just an anomaly to that world," Violet said. "She's also an anomaly in this world. She's eleven with an exceptionally evolved sense of self. She's eleven and could handle University course work far better than students twice her age. She's eleven and hitting a peak that most people don't hit until they're around thrice her age. This world, the Muggle world, holds nothing for her," Violet said, a bit sadly.

"She's a genius! The world's wide open to her!" Addie said, obviously having taken offense to Violet's insinuations.

"Is it, though?" Violet challenged. "Hermione, tell your parents what you observe. Addie, Archie... listen to your daughter."

Hermione took a deep breath, at first nervous, but then opening up and spilling her feelings to her parents with relative ease. "...and I could always go to University after I leave Hogwarts," she finished. "Then I'd be the same age as other University students. I'm tired of standing out this way right now," she added. "I'd like to... well... be around kids my age and for once be on the same level as them. We'd all be learning the same magic at the same pace."

Addie and Archie looked at one another with desperation. "Hermione, there has to be another way, something else for you..."

Hermione shook her head resolutely. "No, this is it."

"If she doesn't go now, this year, she won't ever go at all," Violet added seriously. "They need to start their schooling at eleven. It's the way Hogwarts has always done it. You can't wait until next year. You got the letter this year, so this term is the year for her to go. She needs to send back an owl with her answer by the end of this month."

"That doesn't give us a lot of time to consider it, now that we're actually thinking it's a viable option," Archie said tersely.

"What's to consider, Da?" Hermione asked, sounding a bit desperate herself. "This is your answer. You and Mum are always wondering what to do with me."

"Yes, but we didn't mean send you away to wizard school!"

"I know, but... but..." she turned imploring dark eyes on her parents. "Think about it. Can you _really_ handle another school year of conferences with teachers upset their eleven-year-old Upper Sixth Form student was cheeky, when she was just pointing out an error in their line of thinking?" She tried to smile knowingly, but felt her bottom lip trembling, threatening to betray her true sense of desperation. "For the first time in all of this I know what I _want_. The other stuff, accelerating through course work and stuff, I didn't mind it, but now I have a choice about my future."

Archie and Addie looked at one another, each feeling a sense of defeat growing. "Hermione... what if it turns out to be something entirely fake? A scam? You realize with the ramifications of this, this Indigo thing, there's also the idea this isn't what it seems, no matter what your book says," Addie pointed out. "It could be a very clever ruse by a very clever author."

"If you'll trust me," Violet interrupted gently, "I can show you that it's not. All you need to do is adjust your perceptions."

Hermione looked at her parents and shrugged. "Come on. What have we got to lose?"


	8. Chapter 7: Reality Renewed

_Chapter 7: Reality Renewed_

"Well, I was in denial, now I think I'm just plain in disbelief," Archie said, opening the door to darkened Granger house.

"Or maybe it's just shock," Hermione jibed with a smile on her face, practically skipping into the house. "I, for one, am positively brimming with excitement."

"Which is what is so strange about it all," Addie said, following behind them and closing the door. She flipped on the hall light. "You, the one we can usually count on to be logical, are embracing this."

"Well, why not?" Hermione asked, but she was still grinning. "You saw with your own eyes, it's all real. There's another world existing parallel to our own! They have their own shops, and transportation, and post system... it's fascinating!" Her ramblings were broken off by a yawn. "Now that I'm home... I think all the excitement's caught up with me. I'm going to bed. G'night!" she exclaimed in a bright, yet sleepy voice. She bounded up the stairs, leaving her bewildered and bemused parents staring at one another in the hall.

"I suppose she has the right idea, as usual," Archie said, climbing the staircase a bit more slowly than his daughter had. Addie followed him up to their bedroom, where they both collapsed on the still-made bed, both of them still fully clothed. "So."

"So, what?"

"What do we tell the others at the practice come Monday? About our holiday?"

"Just that... well, we went to London for a couple of days," Addie said, punctuating it with a yawn of her own. "It wouldn't be entirely false."

"What do we tell our parents? Her teachers? What do we tell anyone who asks about her?" Archie said with a note of wonder in his voice. "You and I still don't entirely believe all of this, and we've, well, seen it," he finished.

Addie nodded quietly in the dark, recalling herself that moment Violet Peekins had tapped the brick wall behind the dumpy little pub, The Leaky Cauldron. She remembered the strange patrons, all wearing something akin to the robes Violet wore, only in various colors and states of shabbiness or fastidiousness. She remembered the toothless landlord waving enthusiastically to Violet, who gestured to the Grangers, and then to the back door; she recalled emerging in a dingy back alley, occupied by a trash dumpster and the scent of cat urine, and the dull and dirty brick wall that blocked any further progress. That was, until Violet tapped several bricks in a very particular order...

...In the next bedroom Hermione also was recalling her first glimpses of what was to be her new reality. She was tired, this was true, but once her body had stopped moving it only provided an opportunity for her mind to race and reel and roil with everything she had seen and experienced. It was not difficult for her to relive that moment of exhilaration when the bricks of the cat-pee-scented wall started to move. They twisted and turned and formed an archway into a world she could never have imagined, a world full of shops with strange bits and bobs, full of people clothed in robes and strange hats milling about the cobblestoned roadway. It was like something right out of the nineteenth century, or even earlier. Owls flew about in broad daylight, rolled scraps of parchment tied to their legs, or carrying brown-wrapped parcels in their claws. A surly teenager sneered at his harried mother and said, "What, are you going to use an Unforgivable on me?" before walking away, his mother calling, "DON'T YOU EVEN _JOKE_ YOUNG MAN!" after him.

Violet had led them to a place titled "Eeylops Owl Emporium". "There's an Owl Post station there, we can send in your Hogwarts acceptance. Then we can see about getting some of your supplies picked up. Maybe just the books and a wand, really no time to get fitted for robes."

As a result, Hermione now had a stack of new books to study (though they all looked quite old, and like something out of a film set in the Victorian era) and a wand, which the strange old man by the name of Ollivander told her was made of vine wood and dragon heartstring. Both Ollivander and Violet had advised her not to use it until she had some proper training, and the Grangers had agreed. Hermione, on the other hand, had made no promises.

As for what to tell people... Well, she wasn't worried about that. She didn't have any friends to explain things to, no school mates or favourite teachers who would particularly care where she wound up. They would all probably assume she'd skipped Upper Sixth Form altogether and gone off to University, and be glad that they could get on with business as usual in the new term. She lacked her parents' network of co-workers and extended family. As for what _they_ would tell people, they could tell them all the truth, for all Hermione cared, but she knew it wasn't a feasible solution. They had been unwilling to believe the situation, and now, even after seeing with their own eyes still felt a sense of disbelief and tentative wonder. They accepted it, but were still in a state of incredulousness over it all. There was no way anyone they knew would believe them.

"...we could tell them she was taken off by the bogeymonster," Addie said, giggling in the next bedroom.

"They'd never believe that; they'd know she'd talk her way out of it," Archie replied with a soft snort, smothering his own laughter. "She... she ran away."

"No, everyone knows she likes school too much."

"True, that. How about... just... a special school somewhere in the North recruited her. It's not far from the truth."

"But it's not all that funny," Addie said, smiling in the dark. "Still, I think it could work well enough. We tell them that a specialist—no, a consultant—told us Hermione is an Indigo Child—"

"And we make it sound very mysterious and important of course," Archie interrupted.

"Right. We tell them that, and then say a school for such precocious children asked to meet with us and wanted Hermione to go there..."

"...and given that she'd be through with traditional school as of this autumn it just seemed best for her."

Addie turned on her side and faced her husband in the darkness. "You know, I think the sad reality is that we need to accept we will never be nearly as smart as our little girl. But the nice thing is if we put our heads together we're positively brilliant."

"Yes, yes we are," Archie said, reaching over and stroking her hair. "I think that's a reality I can live with."

"Me too, dear."

They kissed.

In her room, Hermione smiled. For once it seemed that everything would work out for the best. For once it seemed like the right choice had been made, and what was more, _she_ had made that choice for herself. Granted, as a minor her parents had had to consent to that choice, but they had. Where only a few weeks ago she'd felt like her life was ending, she now felt it renewed and refreshed by this new venture she would undertake. She supposed she should be nervous, but she resolved firmly not to give in to what she was _supposed to_ do, or think, or feel. If she wanted to be excited about this, she would.

She closed her eyes, and her mind continued to work well into her body's sleep. Somehow, in her dreams, coming from far away, she thought she could hear Chopin playing.

"It really will be the best place for her, Kathleen. She'll be with other children... well, like her," Archibald said sensibly, flicking a surreptitious glance at his wife who smiled brightly.

"Tea? I have some lovely biscuits we picked up on our last excursion to London..."

Hermione heard her parents' voices trail off as the adults headed into the kitchen. _By 'like her' he means magical, not just genius-smart,_ she thought proudly, practically preening as she sat in the corner chair, reading through _Hogwarts: A History_ for the second time. She held the book in her lap so her cousin, Isabella, couldn't see what she was reading, though she doubted the slightly older girl would care. Isabella was used to Hermione reading large books, and in Isabella's mind large equaled boring. Now seemed no different.

Isabella sat at the piano, occasionally tapping a key and letting the note reverberate and die. "Ugh, it's so _boring_ here," she complained for the third time in nearly as many minutes. "I don't see why I have to come when your parents invite my mother over to tea."

Hermione just shrugged. "Make the best of a bad situation," was all she said, not lifting her eyes from the absolute riveting paragraph about the enchanted ceiling in the Great Hall of Hogwarts castle. According to the book it had been Helga Hufflepuff's idea for the ceiling to be enchanted to mirror the sky outside, so students could feel some sort of freedom from their studies. If there was one thing Hermione was positively dying to see, it was the enchanted ceiling of Hogwarts.

Isabella uttered an exaggerated sigh. "Do you have any sheet music? If I could play the piano maybe I wouldn't be so bored. I've taken lessons for about five years now," she said pompously.

"No," Hermione said automatically, wondering what kind of ability one would need to make his or her own bedroom ceiling mirror the weather conditions out of doors.

"Then what bloody use is this thing?" Isabella demanded, pounding out angry dissonance.

Hermione sighed and put down her book, carefully marking the page she'd left off on. "You don't need the sheet music," she said, "and you'll break it if you're not careful." She edged in past Isabella and found a place to begin on the keyboard, then launched into a Bach etude. "See?"

"You're just a bloody showoff," Isabella snapped, shoving Hermione out of the way. "No wonder your parents are sending you away."

"They're not sending me away. It was my choice to go."

"They can't wait to get rid of you," Isabella sneered. "You'd annoy me too if you were my kid."

Hermione bit her lip and tried not to feel angry, and tried not to yell and scream, or most importantly, tell the truth. Having Auntie Kathleen, Uncle Curran, and Isabella over was the test: a test to see if their cover story would work. If she gave into Isabella's baiting, which she was only doing out of boredom, Hermione was sure, she'd blow it for all of them. Already family gatherings were tense and strained, because no matter how she tried Hermione always wound up upsetting her cousins. And it appeared that now was no different.

"Just shut up, okay?" Hermione finally said through clenched teeth. She headed for the kitchen, wondering if she could find some civilized company among the grown-ups. Unfortunately, her parents were engaged in a rapid-fire argument, seemingly about her, which stopped Hermione right outside the door.

"Sending your own daughter away, though?"

"Come now, Curran," said Addie, trying to sound pleasant. "Lots of parents send their children to boarding school, this isn't any different. It's just that this time the school recruited _her_, and it's a school where she'll be with equals."

"Sorry, Addie, love, but I doubt you'll ever find a place like that. Sounds like utopia," Uncle Curran said with a hearty guffaw.

"Really, Archie, Addie... I know she's difficult to deal with sometimes, but I always thought you could handle it. I mean, it's not like she's a hoodlum, or on her way to becoming a criminal. Is she?" Auntie Kathleen's voice had a strange tone to it, as if she were a circling vulture; only this time the prey was not carrion, it was gossip. "Mum told us about her running off into London..."

"That was an isolated incident. The first, and may I add last, time she's ever done that sort of thing," Archie said in a firm voice. "Addie and I can handle her. It's the schools around here that can't. This... this school will provide her with what she needs."

"A sound thumping when she gives cheek?" asked Uncle Curran, guffawing again.

Hermione wondered if he had been drinking. She listened more closely.

"Look, let's just bring out the tea, and some biscuits. I'd love to talk with Isabella," Addie said cordially—_No you wouldn't—_tacked on Hermione, "because it feels like simply _ages_ since I've seen her last. How old is she now, thirteen?"

"Almost fourteen," said Auntie Kathleen, her voice getting closer, and causing Hermione to sidle back to the living room, where Isabella was reading a magazine.

"Let me guess," the older girl said, blowing a chewing gum bubble. "Nobody felt like talking to you."

"You're not supposed to be chewing gum," Hermione said automatically, more focused on Isabella's gum than on the taunts. "You have braces. The gum will get caught."

"I _always_ chew gum. And eat sweets. And caramel. Gooey caramel that gets caught in my braces and between my teeth and causes cavities. And I refuse to floss, too," she finished, bored. "Honestly, get a _life_, Herms."

"Please, don't call me that, it's annoying."

"Well, so are you. We're even, kay? Why can't you be _normal?_" Isabella popped another bubble, and Hermione watched, wincing, as the gum seemed to weave itself into the brackets and wires in Isabella's mouth as she masticated in an incredibly bovine fashion. She vowed never to chew gum, well, at least not like _that_, and especially not when her braces were finally put on, which her parents told her would be next summer.

"Ah, Hermione. Isabella," Addie said cordially, setting down a tray of biscuits. "Help yourselves, girls."

"Hermione," Auntie Kathleen said with a smile that Hermione automatically recognized as predatory. "Your parents tell me you're being sent away for school this upcoming term."

"I'll be going of my own volition, thanks," Hermione said pleasantly, ignoring Isabella's snort of disgust. "When I weighed my options it was really what made sense."

"I'm sure," Uncle Curran said, shoving a biscuit in his mouth and chewing noisily, crumbs lodging in his graying beard. "Life ain't easy for a kid like you."

Hermione took a deep breath and pasted on a smile, forcing herself to resist correcting his grammar. "No, it isn't, but my hope is this school will make it a bit easier." She daintily nibbled the end of a vanilla-flavoured biscuit. "I'll be with kids just like me. Who could ask for more?"

"Wow, a school of freaks," Isabella said sarcastically, popping yet another bubble, and sneering, showing off her mouth full of metal.

"You're a fine one to talk," Hermione shot back. "Excuse, me, I have some studying to do," she said, turning pleading eyes on her parents, who nodded vigorously.

She loped up the stairs, realizing she'd left _Hogwarts: A History_ behind, but at least this time she had a stack of other books to read. She picked up _The Standard Book Of Spells: Grade 1_ and began reading. Downstairs, the adults were arguing, only this time, it was Archie and Addie reproaching Auntie Kathleen and Uncle Curran for letting Isabella chew gum while she still had on her braces. Hermione smiled as she immersed herself in studying the specifics of swish-and-flick; reality was truly a wonderful thing sometimes.


	9. Chapter 8: Regrets?

_Chapter 8: Regrets?_

She was supposed to be scared. She was supposed to be nervous. She was supposed to be crying at leaving her family behind. She was supposed to do and feel and think lots of things, but oddly enough Hermione couldn't feel any of those feelings or do any of those things that traditions and social norms dictated she was supposed to do and feel. Then again, she didn't do _supposed to_ very well, especially these days.

"Well, everything's in order, then," called her father's voice over the din of the crowd around them. "Right, then, Hermione, got everything you need?"

"Yes, Da, I do," she answered, having forgotten just about how many times that day he'd asked her that. There was right before they left the house... then as they piled into the car... then halfway to the Leaky Cauldron, not to mention _at_ the Leaky Cauldron... and probably several more times in Diagon Alley, which Hermione had learned was the name of the cobblestoned wizarding paradise behind the magical wall in the back alley outside of the Leaky Cauldron. She giggled to herself about the play on words and all the literary jokes one could get out of it, but when she tried to explain the humor to her parents they just smiled politely at her, and shrugged at one another.

"Hermione, are you absolutely certain you want to do this?" Addie asked, kneeling down in front of her daughter and holding her by the shoulders, an act which all in all made Hermione feel very, very young. "It's not too late, you know. We can still find something for you here."

Hermione smiled stoically. "No you can't. You've been looking for years. I guess it found us before we were ever going to find it. Don't cry, Mum," she added awkwardly. "Now the only thing you have to worry about is covering up the truth about where I am."

Addie laughed a bit through her tears. "I know. It will make things quite a bit more relaxing at home."

"See? Make the best out of a bad situation, I say. Really, Mum, I'll be fine; I've been able to take care of myself for years, and, well, you really haven't minded. I can look after myself at Hogwarts," she reassured her mother, dropping her voice a bit so the other Muggles around them would not hear her talking of the secret school. "Besides, I read, in _Hogwarts: A History_ that there are Prefects there, as well as the Professors, who'll make certain I follow the rules."

"Oh, we're not worried about that," Archie broke in, smiling, even though Hermione could see that he too was tearing up. He sniffed, then coughed a bit. "Just... no more secret trips?" He added a wink.

"No promises," Hermione retorted with a devilish grin. "No, really, I don't want to mess this up. I'll follow all the rules. I'll do all my lessons. I've already read _Hogwarts: A History_ twice, didn't get to read it a third time, shame really, and I've read through most of my school books. I've even tried a few spells. Only I can't show you here, and apparently there'd be some commotion if I did. There's some sort of restriction on underage use of magic, which surprises me that they didn't come after me for trying the simple things I did try—"

"Hermione!" Both parents said in unison. "You're rambling again," her mother said, laughing and wiping a tear away from her eyes.

"Oh, I know, I'm sorry," she said sheepishly. "I'm just too excited is all, I guess."

"We know," Archie said fondly. "Now. It's about quarter til, so you should get to your platform so you can load your things on the train."

That was the cue for Addie to stand and retreat to her husband's side. "We can do this," she whispered, squeezing his arm, but Hermione overheard and grinned at her parents.

"Don't start regretting your decision now, it's too late," she said. "Though I hope you have forgotten telling me mere minutes ago that it's not too late," she added, grabbing onto the trolley, on which was loaded her heavy school trunk. She carried a knapsack in which she'd neatly folded her robes, emblazoned with a proud Hogwarts crest, so she could change into them on the train. She struggled a bit to get the trolley to move, and when she had trouble navigating it through the throngs of passengers waiting in the platform area of King's Cross Station, her father took over for her.

"Here we are!" she exclaimed as they paused between platforms nine and ten.

"Well, which one is it?" her father asked, wiping a bit of sweat from his brow. It was September first, but quite warm still. "Nine or ten." He angled the trolley toward platform nine, but looked toward platform ten.

Hermione pulled her ticket from the pocket of her trousers and scrutinized it, though she knew exactly what she was looking for. "Neither, Da. Platform Nine and Three-Quarters."

As was customary of late, Archie and Addie looked at one another helplessly, shrugged, then looked at their daughter for an explanation. "Darling? Can you repeat that?" Archie asked.

"Nine and three quarters," Hermione obliged. It's sort of like the entrance to Diagon Alley... it's there, if you're looking for it. Sort of exists parallel to everything we know. You and Mum can't come with me, though. I'm sorry." Even as she said it she felt herself choke up, realizing that this was it, at least until Christmas holidays, which she knew, from her readings, that she got off. "I will come home for Christmas," she told them, smiling bravely. "And I'll send an owl every week. At night though, so the neighbours don't get suspicious." She sniffled and wiped away her tears.

Her mother hugged her tightly, then her father joined in. After a moment Hermione disengaged from the group hug. "Ten til. The train leaves at precisely eleven o'clock, I want to be punctual." She took a deep breath. "It'll all be fine, I have absolutely no regrets about any of this," she reassured them, and she truly felt that this was the truth. "It will be the best for _all_ of us. Just... make sure if you have Auntie Kathleen and Uncle Curran over Isabella doesn't break my piano. And tell her to stop chewing gum, it'll ruin her braces. She didn't want to hear it from me." Hermione finished with a nod of finality that somehow managed to make her parents laugh.

"We're the ones who are supposed to be giving _you_ advice," Archie said.

Hermione grinned. "Oh, sod _supposed to!"_ she exclaimed, and then, before her parents could chide her for her choice of language, she pushed the trolley as hard and fast as she could make it go, and ran for the barrier between the two platforms. She didn't stop to think that logically she could be making a very big mistake that her skull could be regretting very much. She didn't stop to think that for all intents and purposes running into a brick wall was a bad idea. She didn't stop to think. She just didn't stop.

She closed her eyes.

There was a slight rushing sensation that left her with a tingling in the pit of her stomach, and she opened her eyes slowly, squinting at first, then opening them fully. Behind her was a very solid-looking brick wall, and her past. Before her was a scarlet steam engine, bearing the words "Hogwarts Express" on it in gold. Wizards, witches, and children of various ages, in various states of Muggle or wizard dress milled about, talking, laughing, crying. Hermione smiled and held her head high, suppressing any fear or possible regret. This steam engine before her was the vehicle to her future.

She was embarking on an adventure in a world very few people knew existed. Who could regret that? She heaved the trolley over toward where a corpulent porter was stowing trunks. "Hermione Granger, first year at Hogwarts," she stated calmly and proudly. He muttered some gruff thanks and brushed her off, leaving her wondering what to do, where to go next. It was now only three til eleven, and there were only a few students and parents now milling on the platform in varying states of distress.

"You'll go next year, Ginny," a frazzled red-headed woman said, exasperated, to her equally flame-haired daughter, who pouted and stomped after her as they left the platform area.

"Excuse me, are you a first year?" asked a gangly red-haired boy who was already in robes, only these bore a crest of crimson and gold and read "Gryffindor". He had a silver badge with an ornate P pinned to his collar. "I'm a prefect," he said, slightly pompously. "You'll want to go find a compartment to sit in for the duration of the trip. Wand use is prohibited, though. Just a reminder."

"Oh, of course," Hermione said with wide eyes. "I wouldn't dream of it, with the underage restrictions and all—" she cut off when she realized he'd moved on to reprimand two other red-headed boys who were still on the platform, whispering head to head, evidently plotting something. She turned and strode confidently toward the train, took a deep breath, and boarded, leaving all fears, regrets, and _supposed to's_ behind.

Hope was the only emotional baggage she brought with her. And that could hardly be called baggage at all.

The clock in the station chimed the eleven o'clock hour in with deep booming notes that reminded Hermione of Beethoven, and those knocks of fate upon his door. Fate was knocking on her door, but in a good way. And at this she found herself giggling a bit, because it was the first time she'd ever really thought about giving fate any credit for anything in her life. Perhaps it was fate, perhaps it was luck, or coincidence, or even just sheer irony, but whatever it was she was glad of it.

The train's whistle sounded, deep and throaty, and there was a lurch that nearly knocked Hermione off her feet. She grabbed onto a nearby bar to steady herself, and then realized she needed to find a place to sit. Butterflies emerged in her stomach; she could almost visualize dormant chrysalises breaking apart within her, to reveal butterflies of nervousness. She steeled herself against these feelings. No, she needed to start off better than this, and she would. With resolution she balanced against the lurching of the train and made her way down the long, snaking corridor, glancing in windows as she passed, until she found a compartment with some younger looking students who appeared to be first years, like herself. The door was open.

She took a deep breath and stuck her head in. "Is that seat taken?" she asked politely.

"No, come on in," said a sandy haired boy with freckles and an Irish brogue. "I'm Seamus, Seamus Finnegan. Who're you?"

"Hermione. Hermione Jane Granger," she said, entering and taking the empty seat. Conversation continued where it must have left off, and Hermione just listened. Once or twice she glanced out the window at the rushing countryside, which grew less civilized and more wild the further north they traveled. Yes, she was Hermione Jane Granger, and she was headed away from an old life that didn't understand her to a new life that would. She was an Indigo Child, a prodigy, a genius, but underneath all of that she was indeed just Hermione Granger, and she now had a place to belong.

It was a good realization.


	10. Chapter 9: Repose

_Chapter 9: Repose_

"The rest, as is customary to say, is history," Hermione finished at last, collapsing back on the spare bed in Ron's room. "So now you understand."

"Yes, I suppose we do," said Ron slowly, "but I still don't get why you agreed not to go back to Hogwarts."

Something about his tone of voice and his mystified expression made Hermione laugh, breaking the slightly solemn silence that had befallen the trio of friends. "Because I gave up doing things normally a long time ago. Or when I became friends with you lot. Whichever came first," she retorted with a fond grin. "School's always been a big part of my life, but a couple of troublemakers taught me that sometimes there are more important things."

"Who was that?" Ron asked, looking puzzled.

"Us, you bloody moron," Harry said, rolling his emerald green eyes for Hermione's benefit.

"Oh, right, I knew that. Completely." Ron nodded, wide-eyed. "What do your parents think about this year? You not going back and all."

Hermione squirmed a bit. "Oh, right, well... Actually I hadn't planned on telling them. I don't even know if they know about... about the... the Battle of the Tower," she said. "I did buy them a Daily Prophet subscription for Christmas this year, so they could know what was going on in the event of... things happening. But if they read it, I don't know."

"Why wouldn't they?" asked Ron. "This is your world."

"Muggles don't always appreciate it the way we do," Harry told him. "They're not part of our world, and even when the worlds collide they don't exactly like to pay much attention to it. I don't know if we could ever coexist. Well, coexist intertwined that is. We do well enough coexisting parallel to one another, for the most part."

"See, the thing is, I've never really been close to my family the way you were with yours, Ron," Hermione said. "But I wasn't completely alienated from them the way you were, Harry. I was kind of in the middle. We were like the two worlds. We coexisted alongside one another, but trying to coexist _with_ each other was a different story, and has been ever since I left. Even holidays at home have been awkward. We're better off this way," she said.

"Hermione, they're still your parents," Harry said. "They still love you, even if you're more a part of a different world." There was a wistfulness in his voice. "I think it's been harder for me, seeing people with their families, since going back to the old place—Godric's Hollow," he explained. "I never quite had anything worth calling family. There were blood relations, and that was it."

"I'm sorry, Harry, I didn't stop to think."

"It's okay. It's really something I realized when you were telling your story." He shrugged and ran his fingers through his already-wild hair. It was actually getting a bit longer than normal, looking shaggier and far more unkempt that usual. "When was the last time you were home to see them?"

"Right before we left for the Quidditch World Cup," Hermione muttered, suddenly realizing how embarrassingly long ago that was. "Things kept coming up that kept me from going home. The Yule Ball. Then going to Grimmauld Place with the Order, because You-Know—oh sod it—Voldemort—was back. And spending most of last summer here. And Christmas and holidays at Hogwarts." She bit her lip. "I guess maybe I should have gone home more often."

"You were too busy," Ron said with a goofy grin. "You were studying too much, and forgot what day it was. Or you studied so much your head got too full of knowledge and was too big to fit through the library doors and you were stuck in there forever!" he exclaimed, a menacing expression on his freckled face. He couldn't hold it, though, and burst into laughter. "Why don't you go home now? We have some time," he said reasonably, looking at Harry for support.

"Yeah, Hermione, we're spending our extra time here, then going to Grimmauld Place, _and_ we went to Godric's Hollow, so we've covered Ron's place and _both_ of mine," Harry said with a smile. "We could take a quick trip to yours. Meet those dentist parents of yours properly."

"I don't think I could... they're not expecting me. They may be on holiday," she said lamely, looking away from Harry's gaze. "And I doubt they'd want to hear from me."

"You are their daughter," Harry said firmly. "Of course they want to hear from you. Especially if they've been reading that Daily Prophet subscription and hearing about all the things going on. Give them some credit," he added, seeing her doubtful facial expression. "From the sound of it they may have never understood you but they still loved you."

"Yeah, yeah," Hermione said dully, picking at a lint pill on the hand-crocheted afghan folded at the foot of the spare bed.

"They let you go to Hogwarts when they didn't, you know, get it at all," Ron said. "They definitely wanted the best for you. And they took you to France even though all you talked about was witch burning and other things they probably didn't care about." He grinned knowingly.

"All we're saying is you have nothing to lose," Harry finished, the force of his gaze somehow magnified by his glasses. "Especially now." His voice grew heavy with meaning and all three of them were forced to remember that in spite of the coziness of the Burrow's attic bedroom there was a war going on outside, a war that they would have a part in sooner or later. Time wasn't exactly on anyone's side.

"I'll go into town and phone them tomorrow, first thing," she promised. "So... do I make sense to you now?" she asked, changing the subject.

"It is nice to know you were always annoying," Ron said thoughtfully. "Speaking of annoying, what are they going to do about Head Girl? And wouldn't your parents be chuffed if you told them about that, at least? You said they'd get prefect, they'd understand it."

"I know, I know," she said with a sigh as the conversation turned back to its original topic in spite of her efforts to change it. "That's not exactly what was important to me... OWLs, NEWTs, those things are. Potential jobs with the Ministry of Magic are important to me. Prefect, I expected. Head Girl, I expected. And just like I expected, those are the only things they really understand." She sighed again and laid back, staring at the exposed, slightly warped wood beam rafters. "I haven't officially 'dropped out' of Hogwarts yet, so I'm officially Head Girl, still. But I suspect they'll give it to Padma Patil when they realize I'm not coming back."

"What, not Pansy Parkinson?" Ron said sarcastically.

"I don't think Slytherin has a great name after what happened," Harry said glumly, evidently remembering the horrors he'd witnessed a couple months ago. "Even if Pansy was made a Prefect, I don't think McGonagall ever thought that highly of her, and the way she took up with... with Malfoy," he spat venomously.

"Padma deserves it. More than I do, if you think about it," Hermione said. "With all the rules we three broke? Whether the staff knew it or not? I'd be such a hypocrite." She laughed a bit. "Oh, and Ron, Ernie Macmillan is a definite for Head Boy. I think he'll turn out better than Percy, though," she added, and Ron appeared to have an expression of relief on his face.

"Good, because I always liked that Ernie," Ron said. "If he was going to be another Percy..." he shuddered. "How do you feel about not doing it? Not being Head Girl?"

She shrugged. "Alright, I think. Like I said, there are more important things. Like friends."

"And family," Harry emphasized.

"Yes, and family," Hermione added, if only to appease Harry. She squirmed again under his knowing gaze. "I said I'd phone."

"Don't phone, just go. Tell them everything. Tell them you're Head Girl and let them think it, or that you're giving it up and let them yell at you. Have a nice conversation over tea or have a row. I don't care, honestly, but _go to them_."

Even though she knew Harry made perfect sense, Hermione felt the twinges of something within her. She recognized it as the feeling she had when it became apparent her parents might not send her to Hogwarts, when she thought she'd be left at home, kilometers ahead of her peers academically, but light years behind socially, floundering to fit in somewhere, anywhere. It was fear. "I'm scared," she finally admitted, looking down, around, anywhere but at her two best friends. "I shouldn't be but I am."

"Don't be."

"I am. I don't think I've ever been quite the daughter they wanted, and now if I tell them these things, that I'm dropping out of the school they thought could 'fix' me or something of the sort... I'm just afraid."

"But you don't know anything for certain yet," Ron pointed out, sensibly for once. "Look, Harry and I will go with you, we'll wait outside if you want us to. But Harry's right. You need to do this."

She inhaled a shuddering breath. "And... and you'll both be there. You promise."

"Of course," Harry said, smiling.

"I don't know how we'd get there," she said suddenly. "It's got to be a long trip—"

"You were the first one of us who could Apparate," Ron said yawning. "Next excuse, please." He grinned and sat up, moving across the room to where Hermione sat in just two long strides. He sat next to her and smiled. "Like it or not, you're going to do this, and we are going to be there for you. We're your friends, like it or not. And yes, I'm not a fool, I know there are times you haven't liked it."

Hermione managed a grin. "I know, like when you thought Crookshanks ate Scabbers."

"He should have," Harry shot over caustically.

"Or when you both thought I was a nightmare to be around, and thought it made sense I had no friends," she said with a wider grin. "The great irony is we all wound up friends."

"Well, a bloody mountain troll trying to kill you all at the same time is bound to make friends out of you," Ron said.

"Yeah, Hermione, we faced a mountain troll with you. I think we can handle a couple of dentists," Harry said, rising and making his way over to them, then sitting on the other side of Hermione. "Come on, Hermione. Say you'll do this."

"I don't exactly have a choice in the matter, do I," Hermione said, looking at Ron on her right, and Harry on the left. Both grinned and shook their heads. "Fine. We'll go. Tomorrow. And you'd both better be there for me!" She rose and stretched. "I didn't realize how late it was getting. I should get to bed."

Harry and Ron nodded, and both yawned, as if realizing suddenly that they too were tired. Ron got up again and leapt onto his already rumpled up Chudley Cannons bedspread. "G'night," he said, burying his carrot-topped head under a pillow. Harry remained where he was, watching Hermione carefully. "Alright, there?" he asked.

She paused in the doorway. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Thanks."

"For..."

"Listening, I suppose," she said, leaning against the doorframe. "I never realized before now how much all of that weighed on me. How much I needed to get it out and talk about it. I guess I just always thought it was something wrong I'd done. Something freakish."

"Well, it's certainly not normal," Harry said with a teasing smile. "But it's what makes you, well, you. I'm friends with Hermione the genius freak, but that's the only Hermione I want to be friends with. It's the only Hermione I'd trust," he finished, lying down and taking off his glasses. "Sleep well," he said. "Everything's going to be fine, I think. Eventually."

"Yes, eventually," Hermione agreed. "Good night." She turned and navigated the twisting stairs, a miracle of architecture, that led down to the next floor of the Burrow. She tiptoed into Ginny's room. It was a mark of how late it actually was, that Ginny, and their mutual friend, Luna Lovegood, were already sleeping, Ginny in her bed, and Luna curled up, cat-like, in a nest of blankets.

"'Mione?" came Ginny's sleepy voice. "D'you know what time it is?" she asked groggily.

"I believe half one," Hermione said.

"That's nice. Kind of a rhetorical question though," Ginny said. "G'night."

Hermione suppressed a giggle at her friend's sleepy behaviour, and quietly made her way to the sleeping bag she'd spread out against the far wall. She climbed in, still clothed, and fluffed the feather pillow Mrs. Weasley had left for her. She snuggled down into the bag and closed her eyes, but even then she was not spared flashes and visions in her mind's eye. She sighed and turned over so she was facing upwards, and stared at the darkened ceiling above. For the most part she felt lighter, more free than she'd felt in years, even in the years she'd had such friends like Harry and Ron, and Ginny and Luna. But she also felt that something was still nagging her, something she needed to complete before it was too late. And these days, any day could be too late.

Harry was right. She did need to call on her family, if only because they were family.

And she would. Ron would be there with her, and Harry too. With all the things Harry had on his mind lately it was actually quite thoughtful of him to offer, she thought, which made it seem all the more imperative that they go to the little neighbourhood just outside of London. And maybe they could go into London as well, perhaps call on Violet Peekins. If she was still around, Hermione realized. She hadn't seen the name at all in the Daily Prophet's almost daily casualty list, but that didn't always mean anything...

She shook the weighty sensation out of her mind. Her parents would be home and they'd be glad to see her. Violet Peekins would be in her New Age shop, raving about chakras and Muggles and the colour indigo.

Hermione's eyes traveled from the ceiling to the window, through which the night sky was visible. This far out in the country the sky usually looked black as pitch, or jet, sprinkled with stars, but tonight there was a bit of a moon, and the light turned the sky a deep, dark blue. Indigo. Her colour. And oddly enough, the indigo of the autumn sky seemed to reassure her that she'd be doing the right thing, and had no need to be afraid anymore. She'd been afraid of herself for too long. It was time to overcome that fear.

She smiled to herself and resolutely closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come. Faraway, from somewhere in her oncoming dreams, she thought she could hear Chopin.

* * *

_A Note To Readers_

_I'm not normally one to do this, posting notes in a chapter; I usually do that in my Updates section in my profile. But for those of you who have been faithfully reading **Indigo Autumn** (and even those who just stumbled on it!) I set up a forum in my forums section to discuss not only IA, but also other potential "Indigo Hermione" stories. You have all been so helpful with the story that I'd love to collaborate or discuss the potential for other such works with you. You can find it by pasting this link into your browser. It's titled "Indigo Intimations" (which isa tentative title for the collection): http/ Thanks again! Epilogue coming soon..._


	11. Epilogue: Reunited

_Epilogue: Reunited_

There are some things no child ever forgets how to do, no matter how old he or she gets, or how long it has been. Muggle children never forget how to ride a bike, or so it is said. Wizard children never forget how to fly a broom, even if their abilities on that broom are less than decent. And Hermione never forgot how to dial the number to her parents' dental practice on the Muggle telephone, or how to ask to speak to one of them when the harried and often irritated secretary answered. "Hullo, I'd like to speak with Dr. Granger—either one of them—if they're not with a patient at the moment."

"Well, both are busy. He's doing a crown, and she's making a bite guard for a football player. I'll take a message."

"Um... it's a bit important, I'll hold if that's alright."

"Like I said, I'll take a message."

"Tell them their daughter's on the line," Hermione blurted out, feeling her face flush, and meeting with smiles of approval from Harry and Ron. Harry seemed at perfect ease around the Muggle telephone booth, while Ron didn't quite know what to think. He stared at the receiver with wonder in his eyes. "D'you think that was too much?" she whispered, covering the mouthpiece with one hand.

"Perfect," Harry said.

"Sure. Brilliant," Ron added.

Hermione tapped her foot nervously and pushed her hair out of her face and wished she'd brought a hair elastic or headband along. In the early autumn heat her hair often frizzed out and became nearly unbearable to deal with. She sighed and glanced around the intersection of Charing Cross Road and Shaftsbury Avenue. It was a sunny day, about noon, and people were walking the sidewalks on their lunch hours.

"Hermione?" asked a voice on the other line. "Hermione! Is it really you? Where are you? Is everything fine? I thought you'd be in school by now, it's the third already!"

Hermione laughed. "Hi Mum," she said. "There's something I'd like to tell you and Da, but... can I come home and see you? My friends are with me, too, it's just a quick stop, if we can't it's okay, I know it's short notice, but really we won't be long—"

"Hermione, you're rambling again," Her mother said, and Hermione could almost see the caring smile on her mother's face. "You're our daughter, you don't need to ask to come home. Look, Archie—Da—is finishing up with a crown on a patient, taking a bit longer than he expected. Bit of decay under the old one, you know, but we'll reschedule our afternoon patients."

Hermione twisted the phone cord around her fingers. "Oh, you don't have to do that, really, the last thing I want to do is interrupt the schedule, I know how important it is and all."

"There are more important things in life sometimes, baby," her mother said. "It's settled, whether you like it or not. Just go straight on home, there's a spare key under the back door mat, where it always is, let yourself and your friends in. Da and I will be home soon as we can be."

"Thanks, Mum," Hermione said, sounding a tad bit choked. "I appreciate it." She methodically replaced the receiver into the cradle and leaned against a wall of the booth. "It's alright, we can head home. They'll meet us."

"See, was that _so_ difficult?" Ron asked, grinning and grabbing her hand, tugging her out of the booth.

"No," she lied, but she smiled anyway. "Come on, I exchanged some Sickles at Gringotts for Muggle pounds. Want to take the Tube?" She grinned mischievously at Ron, who looked a bit uncertain. She and Harry both laughed. "We can reverse-reenact my solo trip into London back when I was eleven."

"Well, if you're going to put it _that _way..."

Nearly forty-five minutes later they disembarked from the Metropolitan line, Ron looking positively thrilled by the excursion. Harry himself seemed a bit taken by the novelty of the Tube as well, having not taken it much, if at all, during his time with the Dursleys. "Normally I'd walk from here, but since there's no one around and we're all of Apparating age, I think that'll be the easiest."

"We kind of need to know where we're Apparating _to_," Harry pointed out. "Don't want to wind up splinched."

She winced. "You're right. Can't _believe_ I didn't think about that," she said, rolling her eyes. "I live in a little neighbourhood, probably similar to Privet Drive. Townhouses. It's called Mourning Dove Crescent. All the houses are grey, like the birds," she said, surprised at the nostalgia in her voice. "If we can just get to the entrance, it'll be a few meters to my place, number eleven." She closed her eyes and visualized the dove-grey townhouses with their black shutters and windows, like eyes, that liked to look out at one another. There was a popping noise and a rushing sensation she'd become quite accustomed to, and when she opened her eyes again she was facing her own house. She looked about for Harry and Ron, and when she did not see them, jogged lightly to the yew hedges surrounding the sign proclaiming 'Mourning Dove Crescent'.

Within moments they both appeared, looking a bit less confident from the Apparation. Ron stumbled a bit, and Harry rubbed his head. "This it, then?" he asked, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "You're right, it does look a lot like Privet Drive."

Only a few minutes later they were standing in Hermione's front hallway. "This is nice," Harry said. He peered around a corner into the sitting room. "Hey, there's the piano. Wanna play something for us?" he said teasingly as he entered and looked around. He paused at a framed picture on the mantle of the electric fireplace. "This is you with your parents. When you were a lot younger," he observed.

Hermione approached and looked at the picture with him. "I think I was about nine or ten when that was taken. We'd gone to Ireland for a holiday. That's at the Blarney Stone. We had to come home right after that, because I insisted on telling everyone we met there what sorts of bacteria and viruses were being passed on from all the kissing. The inn-keeper there said I was, if I remember, too smart for my own good, not to mention bad for business," she finished.

"Sounds about right," Ron said with a grin, ducking to avoid her badly aimed smack. "Shame the pictures don't move at all."

"I offered to charm it the Christmas I came home, but... they weren't interested," she said simply, turning her back and sitting down at the piano. Instinct took over, and without warning she her hands were roaming over the keys, playing a mournful Schubert sonata.

"Let me guess, Chopin!" called a hearty male voice, and Hermione stopped suddenly.

"Beethoven, by my guess," a female voice followed, and Hermione jumped up.

"You're both wrong. Schubert," she said sheepishly. "Hullo Mum. Da."

There was a moment where everyone appeared frozen; the only sound in the room was the final, fading reverberations of piano strings. Finally Ron cleared his throat. "These must be your parents."

That broke the tension, and everyone found themselves giggling nervously. Hermione clasped her hands behind her back and looked down shyly, demurely tracing a circle in the carpet with her toe. "It's good to see you," her father finally said.

"We were reading about the horrible things happening in that strange wizarding paper. I can't make heads or tails of it most of the time, but I do try to read what's going on in your world," her mother said. Suddenly she took a few strides and threw her arms around her daughter. "I'm so glad you came home!" she exclaimed, and burst into tears. "Why aren't you at school though?"

"Skiving off school again," her father teased, tears in his own eyes. "Didn't you ever learn?"

"No," Hermione said, laughing and wiping tears out of her eyes. "Harry and Ron," she pointed each boy out respectively, "thought I should come visit. Things aren't going well," she confessed. "There's a lot happening. And a lot I have to tell you and should have told you long before now, but it never seemed like the right time for it."

"We have time now," her father said. "As much time as you need. We'll order take away for tonight, maybe Indian, what do you think, Addie?"

"Yes, that place down the street has the most wonderful curry!" She exclaimed, smoothing her daughter's hair down. "We'll make up the pull-out and the bed in the spare room for your friends tonight."

"Oh, I don't know..." Hermione said nervously, pulling away and looking at Harry to see what he thought. They really were on his schedule, after all.

"Thank you, Mrs. Granger," he said. "That sounds good. Ron?" Ron nodded, and Hermione smiled gratefully. "We don't have a lot of time, but we have time enough for something like this," he said. "And besides, curry sounds pretty good right now."

"What is curry?" Ron wondered aloud, and everyone laughed.

Hours later, bellies full, they sat around the sitting room, Archie and Addie entertained by a green-faced Ron, who didn't seem too thrilled with the finer points of dentistry. Harry kept glancing at the photo on the mantle, and Hermione sat on the arm of the settee that both of her parents sat on, laughing as well. As the evening wore on and the sky faded from light blue, to indigo, to navy, and finally to black, Hermione felt herself growing more and more sleepy and relaxed. Her eyelids drooped a bit and as she listened to Harry telling her parents about the Dursleys, and about Dudley, she wondered why she hadn't done anything like this sooner.

As her father launched into a tirade about all Dudley's candy eating, and what it would do to his teeth, her mother leaned over to her. "I'm glad you decided to come home, darling," she whispered.

"I am too," Hermione whispered back.

"I wondered sometimes if we did the right thing letting you go. I didn't regret it by any means, just wondered."

"You did, Mum."

"Do you... do you have any regrets?" Addie asked uncertainly.

Hermione thought. "No, not really. I think it was the right thing to do and the right time to do it."

"Can I ask why you decided to come back so suddenly?"

"I told Harry and Ron about me. About me pre-Hogwarts."

"And they weren't scared off, I presume?" Addie teased.

"No," she said, laughing quietly.

"What are you two being so secretive about, over there?" Archie asked suddenly. "We outnumber you, so don't make us force you to tell!" he mock-threatened.

"Oh, I was telling Mum how I told Harry and Ron about why you were so glad to send me off to Hogwarts," she explained.

"Well, just so the record's clear, we weren't ever _trying_ to get rid of you," he said earnestly. "And you could have come back at any point. But you needed to be yourself, and if being magic was that self... well, we'd have been selfish to stand in the way of that. We realized that two summers ago when you wanted to go off to London with your friends rather than stay here. And we were fine with it."

Hermione felt herself tearing up yet again. "I thought you just didn't understand."

"Well, we didn't, not really," Addie said. "But we tried to. I think effort counts in this case, don't you?" Harry and Ron nodded emphatically, and Hermione smiled. "No matter what happens, or what you decide to do you're our daughter."

Hermione smiled. So she was, so she was. She was Hermione Granger, Indigo Child prodigy, witch, Hogwarts dropout. But she was also friend of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, and daughter of Archibald and Adeline Granger. She was part of a family. She belonged.

She stood up. "I think I'd like to get some rest now."

"Before you do," her father began, almost embarrassed, "could you play that piece in C minor? The one you played the first time you sat down at the piano."

Taken aback, Hermione could answer nothing other than, "Of course."

"Some Chopin would be nice," Addie said, with a smile.

Hermione smiled as well. "Yes. Yes, he would."

It was a warm night, and the windows were open. Even as a breeze ruffled the window sheers open, the sounds of Chopin flooded out, into Mourning Dove Crescent, somewhere into the indigo darkness of the September night.

**_Fin._**

* * *

_Thank you to all readers and reviewers for making this writing experience truly memorable. While this is the official end of **Indigo Autumn: A Novella**, it certainly doesn't have to be the end of "Indigo Hermione" fanfiction. I'm in the process of drafting ideas for a series of stories chronicling events of the HP series through Indigo Hermione's eyes. Check out my forums for suggestions and discussions and to give your input. Thanks again!_


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